Black Metal continues to innovate and excite in the Snoring Twenties. Bands like Oranssi Pazuzu, Akhyls and Havukruunu released albums in 2020 that mixed post metal, prog, folk and evil Blackness, whilst making me have to correct my spelling every fucking time I type them!! I can immerse myself in those albums and drift away like I can with so much of the Sludge and Doom in my collection.
I thought I was prepared for Hulder. I had seen the pictures and was aware of the growing underground buzz about this one-person project of a Belgian displaced in the United States. Black and white pictures? Check. Swords and forests? Check. Releases on cassette? This is ticking all the right KVLT boxes. However I am too old and fat to be TRVE so it’ll be down to whether this squeezes my oranges in the right way, and by Jove it does.
There is no gentle folky intro on “Hymns of a forlorn pleasantry” . No proggy atmosphere to help settle you in. “Upon Frigid Winds” has a quick organ stab then it is off to the blackened races with a furious old school black metal belter. I am trying to not liken bands to others in 2021 as it does neither justice and also, and most poignantly, I’m out of comparisons as I find myself giving in to the tunes I am currently listening to and feel like a Neanderthal clutching at objects trying to create a spark “Bathory, Immortal, Darkened Noctum Slaughtercult, Venom? Ug!”
Rather I will treat Hulder as a stand alone entity which seems correct for a one person project.
The album has a mix of pace and styles within Black Metal rom the opening fury to the mix of groovy riffs and haunting, almost cartoon gothic keyboards on “Cretaure of Demonic Majesty” to the rampant old school frostiness of “Sown in Barren Soil”.
When Hulder decide to slow things down it almost (almost) comes as a welcome relief. “De Dile” floats in on a babbling brook and some synthesised woodwind and proceeds to be a damn creepy folk spell of a tune. No bombast and bluster just mid woods eeriness and spite. This segues beautifully into the more upbeat but still folk tinged “Purgation of Bodily Corruptions” which has a bit of a Celtic feel to it.
“Lowland Famine” is a trip back in time reminiscent of early tracks by a certain crab walking corpse painted Norwegian gang of troubadours that may live for ever (I didn’t break my new rule). The drums here are simply awesome forcing me to double kick my frozen toes in the cabin in which I now spend most of these plague-ridden days. Evil claws, orange squeezing, grimaces – I am doing it all between badly typed sentences. The tremolo picked outro is damn fine too.
Hulder has a great clean singing voice as well as an awesome acid drenched rasp. She puts the former on display in the first half of “A Forlorn Peasants Hymn” which is a lilting gentle ditty which had me chilling and imagining a quiet float in a shady pond before some unseen horror grabbed me from below and booming chunky metal riffs and crushing black metal leads were wrapped around my struggling body.
The album ends as it started, with pummelling drums and triumphant riffs and the title of the swansong is very apt. “From Whence an Ancient Evil Once Reigned”. This album is a backwards glance of all the classic Blackness that precedes it whilst also striding triumphantly into a new moss- covered future clutching a fuck off big sword and a tonne of attitude.
(9/10 Matt Mason)
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