You have to admire a band that kicks off an album with a genre-defining epic that most other bands would have saved until the very last. The 13 minute pagan metal standard bearer – and add a couple of minutes to that if you include the proceeding pastoral intro – may not be the best thing Heimdalls Wacht have ever produced but it’s a glorious blast that will be music to ears of any long term fans.
It isn’t only a plentiful harvest of grimly infectious and weather-beaten hooks that have always made Heimdalls Wacht stand out. The band has matched its zeal for dark, sombre folk with a harsh, almost depressive, black metal edge that sets it apart from the blue woad brigade or the vast army of auto-regenerating German pagan black metal bands like a battle scarred Road Warrior to a boy racer in a pedal car.
Heimdalls Wacht have tended to occupy a niche somewhere on the bleaker edges of the pagan black metal scene – a combination of Helheim and Nargaroth mixed with Burzum would probably sum up the ingredients of a decent Heimdalls Wacht album for me. Plus a hefty dose of references to various parts of the metal scene all make the average Heimdalls Wacht album an interesting event. And tracks from the back catalogue like In Kalten Schatten Versunken and Der Zug der Wolkenfrauen define what I will always like about the meeting of black metal and folk – combining repetitive, grimly melodic atmosphere and darkness descending like a black sun.
The album cover is a great start to this one. Something terrible has happened, I assume from the picture. But the big introduction heads straight into one of the album’s weaker tracks with ‘Conspratio Barbarica’ which stumped me a bit. The whole track left me flat with, some predictable ‘gang’ choruses and uninspiring riffs which was then, unfortunately, followed by a balladic, Subway To Sally moment ‘Auf roter Erde Erblüht (Ursprung Teil I)’ that had me a bit concerned that seemed to have gone off on a tangent so early in the album. Sure they flirted with clean vocals in the early albums. But it really isn’t where Heimdalls Wacht excels. What’s more, we’re now halfway through the release and, on the present form, even a flying finish would leave this album a little patchy. The swinging serenade picks up towards the end but it isn’t really until the next track Schwarzmondritual that things get back on track and we’re back into harsher realms.
In fact, the track turns nicely into a mini-epic all of its own and I felt like I was putting the miss-steps of the past couple of tracks behind me. Perhaps even be able to take a fresh view of the entire album if the next few tracks impress? The next couple of tracks would have probably worked well as the lighter moments on the album but unfortunately they’re now buttressing something which at times sounds as much like Manegarm or Moonsorrow – both good bands but not why I’m delving into the darker depths with bands like Heindall Wacht – before ending with a largely acoustic number with more clean vocals that trails off into a rousing pagan black metal finale.
To be honest, I’m a little flummoxed. If the album proves anything it’s that this band is not averse to doing as they please: ploughing their own furrow while throwing a few curve balls and then delivering on some truly high notes. But after 2010’s Nichtorte – Oder die Geistreise des Runenschamanen (which is easily among my favourite Heimdalls Wacht albums) and the even darker Ekte Westfäölske Svatte Metal in 2012, it feels like we’re seriously off track here. It’s not just the clean vocals but the other tracks often feel a little predictable and don’t have that sense of doom the band has always captured. Great band and a solid album in some ways but nowhere near the usual standards and perhaps a jaunt too far out of the darkness this band has been so good at delivering. As much as I like this band, my hand will be drifting to the first five albums before I find the time to give this one a second chance.
(7/10 Reverend Darkstanley)
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