I like noise. Wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t. I like black metal. Not a huge hardcore fan but been known to try and look tough in the mirror with Knuckledust or (if they count) Integrity on the hi-fi. And end up looking vaguely camp instead. I like crossovers that are noisy. One ‘crossover’ I have yet to be convinced by though is hardcore and black metal. Usually to these ears it ends up sounding like dull metalcore with the tiniest nod to black metal, or just dull black metal with some bloke shouting. So can Hessian (that’s the Belgian Hessian, by the way, not either of the two US Hessians) change that any? Well I’m a fairly open minded person, so why not.
Well including members of Amenra and The Black Heart Rebellion they have the hardcore base covered and I guess both bands crossover into other territories regularly so they are inclined towards the ‘playing with the sound’ idea. They are also noisy and angry as fuck. Which is good, of course and for example the track Swallowing Nails is a fair good stab at an Anaal Nathrakh tinged blood vessel bursting tune with that perfect black metal sheet of metal guitar sound. Actually throughout the album that guitar sound is pretty spot on and prevalent, and it does blend in really well the the more choppy hardcore rushes and breakdowns they employ. Hard as those nails they swallowed, beautifully dexterous in their implementation and tight as a testosterone bursting bicep: Hessian are all that. Stop and start on a bottle cap, shift gear and rhythm like one; really, the quality of the band is way above average which I guess is why Southern Lord came with the offer.
Clang.
You were waiting for it to drop, weren’t you?
The odd soundscape aside, the pace here is about as relentless as the intensity but after opener Ascension, which starts all modern black metal before the hardcore rhythm picks up, or Serpent’s Whisper, it is already an album needing more light and shade. We’re halfway in numbers wise before Father Of Greed slows stuff to a blackened sludge and Vamacara goes post rock soundscape on me, and the preceding tracks have already blurred into one howl. I can take intensity, and relentless, but the blurring of one track into another worries me. I can’t break that up to find what is surely lying beneath. Without a lyric sheet either I can’t even use that way in. It just becomes a bit too much of more of the same unfortunately.
I’m not sure how much hardcore fans would go on this, and it certainly doesn’t tickle my black metal bone either. Intense? Absolutely. Loud and angry? Oh yes. Genuinely tight and impressive musicians? Certainly. Interesting? With so little real variation beyond those two tracks, for me, alas no. Maybe you’re made of sterner stuff. I suspect I will be in a minority here with this opinion anyway.
Sorry guys.
(5.5/10 Gizmo)
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