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SLAGMAUR “Hulder's Ritual”
SLAGMAUR “Hulder's Ritual”
By Octopi Mills
Seems like there's a lot of talk about "re-writing black metal's rules" here in the promotional write up. Then you'll see and know that Snorre Ruch of THORNS and MAYHEM lore has been brought in to produce the thing…
This all leads up to some heavy statements that usually are not quite delivered upon out of the artist's own mind who has made such great claims. Where and why do men derail on such a path, one might ask? Ego? Getting old and past the expiration date? Too many pints on the day the said statement was documented? I don't think so, not always...the disease of being an artist is one of the great maladies of all time, up there with the alleged Napoleon complex. The band logo looks like it was carved out by some slasher type while the album cover is quite good for these sorts of indulgent things; these claims that set the bar high.
And it is a bar that has to be high in that it must carry a great torch and outburn the old masters at their own game in formula or when new things are applied. It nearly never works. Much like folk music- all of what I said could apply. But like an old cabin there lays the hammer and axe, the old barnwood and the tried-and-true design. Well, I never would have guessed TAAKE's Hoest is on the vocals or that DIMMU BORGIR's Silenoz is on the guitar, but such is the case, I read. I am not quite clear if these are guest appearances at times on certain songs here or what the case is, but for this night it will not matter.
When you get to a song called "Huldergeist" in this day and age after such a claim, the penman of such must be held accountable to having encountered such an entity at least once in his lifetime or all bets are off. To paint with such a brush is something anyone can do these days, and there is an old feel to this somewhat, indeed- it is what some scholars and alchemists would call the sound of the "third wave" black metal. The overall layer of the guitar is the best thing done; a sort of creamy paste of whirly fuzz that is quite like electric velvet at times. That and the album cover, which is either creepily great or outright ridiculous, those are the credentials. Female vocals come in like a bouncy room thing that throws the whole thing off a bit, a sort of funhouse. "Hexen Herjer" has an interesting sort of opening with keys before a few key vocal parts that do something different. Trying to get groovy and dark mattery of fact and galactic, the song bears the arse of the celebrity BM of Norway. Hoest like so many others doing silly school girl things- kissing the edgy SHINING guy who whines and makes BM a gangsta rap sort of style....these are the ways I suspect many try to take black metal to new directions and edge. "NO" is the answer.
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