Artist: Horde Of Hel
Title: Blodskam
Type: Album
Label: Regain / Blooddawn Records
A band of established black metal musicians claim to be behind this project although wish to remain anonymous. Not that I would wish to plant ideas into your head but just a few things I couldn’t help but notice; this is released on Blooddawn Records, the label owned by Morgan Hakansson of Marduk. The album is mastered by Devo Andersson, who is perhaps better known as the bassist from Marduk, and the cover art was designed by Mortuus, who is the vocalist in…yep, you guessed it – Marduk. But that’s not to suggest in the slightest that it could even be members of said band behind the project. This should be where the religious and therefore gullible and weak of mind should leave the hall as you really are not the target demographic of Blodskam and this is made abundantly clear on the band’s website. Preaching the downfall of mankind and the annihilation of life, love, kindness and care this is more than a mere slap in the face of Christian fundamentalists everywhere; they theoretically march through the church door and open fire on the whole fucking lot. They glorify war, execution, abomination, death, terror, fight against morality and kindly proclaim in their influence section “We hate everything about you!” and assuming that to be something of a compliment, if I knew who you were I’d surely hate you too!
You get a clear picture of what this is all about and the overall tone of this record is just downright fucking nasty. This is no by-numbers black metal affair but oozes spite and pure contempt for man through every orifice. You get that cold, bleak and utterly colourless feel on ‘Leave Life Behind’ that has a militaristic drum beat marching through as the ravenous rasps leave us for dead and protrude with a warmongering thirst for blood. The quotes of WWII veteran George S. Patton strengthen the wartime vibe that seems especially pertinent on the first half of this album, on ‘Hail Chaos’ which simmers menacingly like molten lava waiting to strip the bones clean of flesh on any foolish Christian that hasn’t run away frantically crossing their chests as they do so. There’s some great, callous blackened guitars on tracks like ‘Born Again Into Submission’ which really gnash away at the eardrums and on ‘Domen Mot’ which has some equally ferocious down picking.
There’s plenty of atmosphere in this album and while there are some cold and harsh moments of pure black metal hatred and aggression, this is also interspersed with some experimental tracks that makes this a really interesting listening experience. ‘Living Abomination’ is the kind of tune you’d expect to hear at a rave in the bunkers of hell, if Satan knows how to get his groove on; I can’t claim to have ever met the guy so I wouldn’t know. ‘Visdomen Kallas Doden’ is built up of what sounds like myriad layers of orchestral pomp topped off with apocalyptic choirs and has a real epic film-score feel to it. Speaking of choirs, they also make an appearance in ‘Dodens Ara’ which is a real head-fuck moment as the grim opener is suddenly broken up by a mean sounding riff.
Everything here comes across as loud and over the top and nothing is done in half measures on this release. There’s a vengeful swagger to ‘The Glory Of Massmurder’ that really does sound like a madman on the rampage while there is a haunting ambience that the main elements don’t seem to have any problem with breaking through. In places this album has quite an industrial sound to it, with the strong marching drums and electronic dance beats that are scattered across the mix. ‘Ashborn’ is placed towards the end of the CD and really draws me in to its dark and mystical ambience, which segues into the experimental sounds of ‘March For War’ which carries that ambience through with a unsettling yet strangely mellowing and hypnotic trance. What is being said on this track really is a mystery; surely if I had a way of reversing the music I could make more sense of it but for now it remains clandestine to all but the mysterious members of the band. This is an exceptional offering of black metal and one that comes most highly recommended. Blodskam is the kind album that flows effortlessly with both aggression and mysticism sitting agreeably in the mix and each track seeming to compliment the next. After all this I feel the urge to kill some Christians. Now, where’s my shotgun?
http://www.myspace.com/heldivine
Luci Herbert
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