Black Metal History Month - Hollow Woods : "Like Twisted Bones of Fallen Giants"

 

By starting their sophomore album with clean vocals, this Finnish band is already setting themselves apart from the masses. There are however many other elements in play that allow them to hold common ground with the current state of black metal. Their strength in between blast-beaten bouts of fury is the well-layered pulse of their music. The vocals are largely anguished but soar out into a more Primordial-like croon in places, enough to keep it switched up. While this works well enough for the first two songs, the question for the rest of the album is whether are they able to keep things from getting stale and not just thrash their way into a monochrome formula. 

"Night Burns Through" is propelled by a buzz of guitar that is very similar to what they conjured up in the previous song. To their credit, it is not the same tremolo picking that you hear all the time and the vocals croak and scowl with more variance than most bands these days. The drummer understands the value of dropping back to the double bass. Subtle variations on a theme, but not something that is going to rewrite the way the genre is approached. The acoustic guitar as an outro does provide more dynamics to the album as a whole. it would have been more interesting to hear it as a working part of the song. 

"Halls of Idle Breath' is less interesting as it passes by in a hypnotic drone. The vocals that steer things in a more Primordial direction work better on "Burial Fires". It counter balances the gargled cries. They are sung with an almost Candlemass like power. The song itself carrying a bit of dynamic ebb and flow, making it one of the album's best. The last song also follows more of a Primordial path , and while I appreciate where this album is willing to not follows blindly, I think they are in fact capable of more which is what you hear here, I will give the album an 8, it does what you expect it to do and follow the formula to success. 

PST47