That is definitely not heavy metal

Written by atrox on 02.07.2021 at 09:42

That is definitely not heavy metal

I agree, somehow I never liked band then, and cant get in now as well-

I'll give them this, it's different.

While I respect the different approach I think this whole thing needed more time in the oven. There are parts I really liked and parts I didn't care for almost at all.

The three longer songs were mostly what I was worried about the more I learned about this album while they were releasing singles. Two of the long songs, Inka and Duir, turned out to be pretty much what I thought they'd be, which is why I was hesitant to even get this. They are vague, slow builds without much structure or substance even with more time to work with. I'm not unaccustomed to long songs by any means either but they both felt longer than they are because there isn't much to them. Even as atmospheric pieces they were far from engrossing and quickly forgotten. I can't say I'll be coming back to Inka or Duir much, but I thought Uelewa was pretty good and actually went somewhere.

The shorter songs usually have a lot of power and aggression to them, more aggression than the horsemen have had in a while, and I liked that a lot. But half of those songs feel underdeveloped and they're over before you know it.

Children of mother night is an example of a good blend. It's slow, shorter, softer, and stronger. It feels fully formed as a song and as an idea. Inka and Duir feel almost aimless by comparison.

Ymir is a truly great song. It's some of the coldest black metal vibes I've heard in a bit with other stuff thrown in. It is probably the most polished song here and certainly deserved a better collection of songs to go with it. It has a great growing progressive structure that keeps reaching for new heights and it even has more atmosphere than the songs that only have atmosphere going for them. It was the song that made me very curious what the rest of the album would be. In the end, I'm unfortunately not very surprised by what I found.

I think the second half/disc is easily the better half because the overall writing and flow between songs is way more consistent, but it's actually probably best pick the songs you want to return to from the whole thing and ditch the rest because this album is a mess unless you start taking parts out of it.

I don't know if I'd say this experiment was really worth it since I found this album to be just as hit and miss as their previous three albums. I'm sure it was a ton of fun to make the way they made it but that didn't exactly translate as enjoyable to listen to, for me at least. I imagine it will come down to personal taste for which parts each person will like but I think very few people will like everything in this album.

Ok, it is not heavy metal. But what is it? Any ideas?

Written by nikarg on 11.07.2021 at 21:25

Ok, it is not heavy metal. But what is it? Any ideas?

Best I could think of in my review was "post-death", but it doesn't sound like post metal, rather like the jazzy sort of post rock. Like atmospheric post-black metal, but death.

None of their albums I'd call heavy metal, really. Alternative metal, maybe. Heavy metal is indeed a very misrepresenting genre tag for this band. They always kept, more or less, their melodic blackened death metal roots, there is alternative metal á la Faith No More or System Of A Down on albums like Samurai and Licht but on Riders On The Storm between those two, they went more symphonic and folk. The previous album, Der Rote Reiter, was a nice return to melodic death...

For this album, post rock, death metal, and folk rock, maybe? Hard to say.

Written by Zyk on 10.07.2021 at 01:51

Even as atmospheric pieces they were far from engrossing and quickly forgotten. I can't say I'll be coming back to Inka or Duir much, but I thought Uelewa was pretty good and actually went somewhere.

Ymir is a truly great song. It's some of the coldest black metal vibes I've heard in a bit with other stuff thrown in.

I think the second half/disc is easily the better half because the overall writing and flow between songs is way more consistent, but it's actually probably best pick the songs you want to return to from the whole thing and ditch the rest because this album is a mess unless you start taking parts out of it.

I imagine it will come down to personal taste for which parts each person will like but I think very few people will like everything in this album.

Cherry picking some quotes to reply to here! "Uelewa" is defeinitely the best of the longer jams. That lead guitar, man. "Inka" is perhaps the most forgettable of the longer ones, but I like "Duir" very much, it sounds much shorter than it is due to the vibes, I think.

"Ymir" is badass, "coldest" indeed, hope you don't mind that I plagiarised your description in my review, heh.

Against all odds, I still listen to the album from top to bottom now and then. The second half contains the best songs, but the first one feels more cohesive somehow. I prefer the short death metal mantras on disc 1 to the sillier "Wa He Gu Ru".

Maybe I am just scatter-brained enough to actually like everything in here, though obviously to varying degrees. This album and the way it was made is really an accomplishment

Written by Netzach on 25.07.2021 at 01:37

Written by Zyk on 10.07.2021 at 01:51

Even as atmospheric pieces they were far from engrossing and quickly forgotten. I can't say I'll be coming back to Inka or Duir much, but I thought Uelewa was pretty good and actually went somewhere.

Ymir is a truly great song. It's some of the coldest black metal vibes I've heard in a bit with other stuff thrown in.

I think the second half/disc is easily the better half because the overall writing and flow between songs is way more consistent, but it's actually probably best pick the songs you want to return to from the whole thing and ditch the rest because this album is a mess unless you start taking parts out of it.

I imagine it will come down to personal taste for which parts each person will like but I think very few people will like everything in this album.

Cherry picking some quotes to reply to here! "Uelewa" is defeinitely the best of the longer jams. That lead guitar, man. "Inka" is perhaps the most forgettable of the longer ones, but I like "Duir" very much, it sounds much shorter than it is due to the vibes, I think.

"Ymir" is badass, "coldest" indeed, hope you don't mind that I plagiarised your description in my review, heh.

Against all odds, I still listen to the album from top to bottom now and then. The second half contains the best songs, but the first one feels more cohesive somehow. I prefer the short death metal mantras on disc 1 to the sillier "Wa He Gu Ru".

Maybe I am just scatter-brained enough to actually like everything in here, though obviously to varying degrees. This album and the way it was made is really an accomplishment

Well, like I said, this album definitely comes down to personal tastes. I've listen through a few more times since then and Inka and Duir don't bother me quite as much but they always lose me even after they start to get interesting, just not my thing.

Plagiarize all you want haha, it's hard not to think of "cold" when Ymir is on. I agreed with most of your review even if I ended up with a slightly different score.

The second half does indeed get sillier which I think has always been an aspect I like more about the horsemen, and is probably why I like Samurai the most of their albums.

I certainly can't fault them for trying this approach but I can't deny that I actually do really like a lot of this material and would have loved to hear some of these songs developed and polished further from where they are, but as it is it's still quite something. A couple things I didn't mention before are that I love the vocals on this album and all the instrumentation is pretty interesting even if a particular overall song isn't. I'm sure making this was one of the most fun times this band had together, but alas I'm someone who prefers refinement and fine tuning. I guess I just wish they spent a third day on it, but then it would probably be a triple album that's even messier instead.