Kval : "s/t"

Sure most black metal bands from Finland have hateful vocals. Where these guys set them selves part is how the hate sits over the more thoughtful gloom of the chords, which is  not the first thing I think of when it comes to Finnish black metal, but that is thankfully what these guys are bringing to the table. Now if Horna puts out a new album I'll review it , but I don't need other bands to sound like them. These guys care about the quality of their guitars the only thing that is lo-fi are the vocals which are mixed into the background which is the only Burzum like quality this music has. Aside from the fact it's black metal. The tempo becomes even more languid and fluid as it flows gracefully over the cold landscape they paint with renewed atmosphere. There are less vocals in this song and the guitars carry the melody , not the vocal were really helping in that area. "Polkuni..." has a solid mid paced drive to it and accents what is the other strong point of this album.

This album does not run off  of blast beats. In fact I have heard more double bass and don't recall hearing a single blast beat at this point unless they snuck them by me in the drone that enfolds you. While blast beats are a defining quality of black metal and in and of themselves there is nothing wrong with them, I think too many black metal bands have become to reliant on them. For a genre that vows to uphold the anthem of the outcast, they tend to go with the pack in this regard. This is why I get so excited when someone steps away from this conformity to do their own thing.


The last song before the album fades out in a bit of atmospheric tinkling, has a similar drone as Burzum. The guitar nuances are more melodic than Burzum . This is not the album's strongest song as the mood is rather monochrome. I will give this album an 8.5 , it's pretty solid and most of my praise for it would fall under what I mentioned previously , while it does obviously take influence from the past , it is not a slave to the rules of black metal, but achieves the emotions I want from black metal. I will make sure to keep these guys on my radar as I would like to hear where they go from here.