Post by nocturnaliridescence on Jan 5, 2019 19:20:39 GMT -6
Note: The following review was not written by me, but by fellow user SLAVE_HEART . He approached me with this, and I agreed to post it here on his behalf. Credit goes to him.
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I collect a lot of unblack metal. I collect ever sub-genre from raw to symphonic and enjoy it all. When I first paid attention to the artist Azmaveth, lead musician and screamer of bands Beeroth, Herlighet, and even Christian Grindcore band Impaled Baphomet, I also looked into the band Hortor. The evolution of Azmaveth and his wife Adunamy who provides the operatic soprano vocals on occassional tracks of his various Unblack projects has been an interesting one to follow. I always knew and recognized his style as apart from other musicians due to his unique style given to each different project. Beeroth had a raw symphonic feel, where as herlighet had a clean production haunting feel. This same haunting symphonic feel was found in the hortor album Decapitacion Absoluta Al Falso Profeta. After this release I found that Hortor went and followed the path of atmospheric unblack in the albums Ancient Satanic Rituals Crushed In Dust and Dios De Dioses. It seemed to me that the symphonic path was no longer followed in the Hortor projects, and while I always enjoyed their Hortor albums which were always well mixed and High Quality, I assumed they wouldn't give me what I loved so much on the earlier albums of symphonic goodness. Boy was I wrong.
Dharma Esencia de Impureza was an album I was not expecting to hear, in a good way. The intro track Canticum Asaph Fortis Deus was an instrumental track, done not in style of haunting keys that one expects with most unblack, but sounds like you would expect from the London Symphony. It sounds like a great complex intro, and it is done so well you expect that this is just an opening track to enjoy an album without any keys. Your assumption is wrong. Every song that follows the intro is a wrestle. You have the atmorspheric Unblack you know from Hortor's albums like on Dios De Dioses, but in between the atmosperic unblack screams, you have symphonic orchestral sections with very High Quality Male Vocals and Adunamy's Female Soprano vocals. For the next four tracks after the First you have the musical wrestle of well blended back and forth sections. With Adunamy's vocals and the wrestle switch to gruff atmosperic Unblack riffs, you think of "Beauty and the Beast". This back and forth wrestle happens until you get to the track Culto a la Serpiente Antigua in which you find no more a wrestle as in previous tracks, but a combination of symphony and screams simultaeously automatically making it a favorite track. Yet to make sure you understand Hortor has not lost their touch with Atmosperic Unblack from albums like ancient Satanic Rituals Crushed In Dust and Dios De Dioses, the next two tracks are done fully in that style of classic Hortor with light symponic touches. It has it's pros and cons. The pro is that every song does not sound the same on the album and the con is that they do such a good job with the symphony that you miss it. To me, as a collector it was more pro then con. When the track Ecos de Magnificencia plays for the first half, you expect it to be like the former two, until the second half of the song kicks in and you realize that they have not forgotten their symphonic touch on the beginning tracks of the album, yet then the title track; Dharma Esencia de Impureza and the last two songs following it hit you hard with the screaming and symphony combination that leaves you blown away.
So many Unblack artists who use symphonic keys have an underground feel, and are typically haunting, which any symphonic unblack listener enjoys. Yet in this album the keys are an orchestra in which I have never heard before in a symphonic release. This makes the album unique automatically, and I see nothing but completely clean mastering and mixing. It's mix is professional, and this is not an album to bypass. A lot of work was done for this album and as I look at the evolution of Hortor this is an upgrade. Though I hope a side project will give me the haunting keys of Azmaveth found in other projects.
It's hard as a collector to find a band or style of Unblack that makes it unique, and when I find one, it's typically an underground new experimental style, not one of high quality. Hortor outdid themselves and I give this release 10 stars out of ten.
________________________________
I collect a lot of unblack metal. I collect ever sub-genre from raw to symphonic and enjoy it all. When I first paid attention to the artist Azmaveth, lead musician and screamer of bands Beeroth, Herlighet, and even Christian Grindcore band Impaled Baphomet, I also looked into the band Hortor. The evolution of Azmaveth and his wife Adunamy who provides the operatic soprano vocals on occassional tracks of his various Unblack projects has been an interesting one to follow. I always knew and recognized his style as apart from other musicians due to his unique style given to each different project. Beeroth had a raw symphonic feel, where as herlighet had a clean production haunting feel. This same haunting symphonic feel was found in the hortor album Decapitacion Absoluta Al Falso Profeta. After this release I found that Hortor went and followed the path of atmospheric unblack in the albums Ancient Satanic Rituals Crushed In Dust and Dios De Dioses. It seemed to me that the symphonic path was no longer followed in the Hortor projects, and while I always enjoyed their Hortor albums which were always well mixed and High Quality, I assumed they wouldn't give me what I loved so much on the earlier albums of symphonic goodness. Boy was I wrong.
Dharma Esencia de Impureza was an album I was not expecting to hear, in a good way. The intro track Canticum Asaph Fortis Deus was an instrumental track, done not in style of haunting keys that one expects with most unblack, but sounds like you would expect from the London Symphony. It sounds like a great complex intro, and it is done so well you expect that this is just an opening track to enjoy an album without any keys. Your assumption is wrong. Every song that follows the intro is a wrestle. You have the atmorspheric Unblack you know from Hortor's albums like on Dios De Dioses, but in between the atmosperic unblack screams, you have symphonic orchestral sections with very High Quality Male Vocals and Adunamy's Female Soprano vocals. For the next four tracks after the First you have the musical wrestle of well blended back and forth sections. With Adunamy's vocals and the wrestle switch to gruff atmosperic Unblack riffs, you think of "Beauty and the Beast". This back and forth wrestle happens until you get to the track Culto a la Serpiente Antigua in which you find no more a wrestle as in previous tracks, but a combination of symphony and screams simultaeously automatically making it a favorite track. Yet to make sure you understand Hortor has not lost their touch with Atmosperic Unblack from albums like ancient Satanic Rituals Crushed In Dust and Dios De Dioses, the next two tracks are done fully in that style of classic Hortor with light symponic touches. It has it's pros and cons. The pro is that every song does not sound the same on the album and the con is that they do such a good job with the symphony that you miss it. To me, as a collector it was more pro then con. When the track Ecos de Magnificencia plays for the first half, you expect it to be like the former two, until the second half of the song kicks in and you realize that they have not forgotten their symphonic touch on the beginning tracks of the album, yet then the title track; Dharma Esencia de Impureza and the last two songs following it hit you hard with the screaming and symphony combination that leaves you blown away.
So many Unblack artists who use symphonic keys have an underground feel, and are typically haunting, which any symphonic unblack listener enjoys. Yet in this album the keys are an orchestra in which I have never heard before in a symphonic release. This makes the album unique automatically, and I see nothing but completely clean mastering and mixing. It's mix is professional, and this is not an album to bypass. A lot of work was done for this album and as I look at the evolution of Hortor this is an upgrade. Though I hope a side project will give me the haunting keys of Azmaveth found in other projects.
It's hard as a collector to find a band or style of Unblack that makes it unique, and when I find one, it's typically an underground new experimental style, not one of high quality. Hortor outdid themselves and I give this release 10 stars out of ten.