Meaning “Spirits” (among other interpretations) in native Finnish Henget may well be a new name but with them comes a wealth of experience. Primarily the project of Saturnian Mist vocalist King Aleijster de Satan ‘Beyond North Star’ is essentially a work channelling both avant-garde black metal and ‘progressive esoteric folk’ music. This may strike as a bit odd on paper but what it does fairly effectively is tie in eight songs with a good variation of ideas which could well appeal to a cross section of listeners. Along with the Satanic overlord, we have songwriter Jesse Heikkinen on board here and he no doubt brings a lot of these ideas to fruition due to involvement in bands such as Hexvessel and The Abbey. Apparently psychedelic and shamanistic ‘spirits’ were also utilised in the creation process here so naturally one could expect a bit of a tripped out experience.
The opening guitar and drum strains of ‘Dive’ have a certain Led Zeppelin acoustic melody before everything stomps in and blackly steams off. In quieter points where the drumming bombast ceases activity you can feel those shamanistic roots unravelling atmospherically but on the whole this is a brash and bruising number with plenty of swagger about it. Classic Scandinavian darkness is summoned like a hurricane tearing through the rambunctious ‘I Am Them’ and I am beginning to wonder where the folk is the fricking folk? This is far heavier than anticipated and we are caught in a storm. But hold on, proggy keyboards suddenly tinkle away and there are some jazzy parts here to catch you off guard before everything sweeps back in with a symphonic gravitas quite rightly drawing the label to mention that we have bits of everything here from King Crimson to Arcturus and beyond.
It’s far from plain sailing on these choppy oceans as ‘Henkivallat’ takes us off on a speedy merry-go-round of the carnival bizarre. It gets your head spinning that’s for sure and is an extreme and giddy whirlwind of a track where the ‘Spirit powers’ come home to roost with the energy of a malevolent poltergeist. The mischievous evil cackle from the frontman perfectly sums it up before the very (Finn) trollish stomp of ‘The Great Spiral’ have him huffing and puffing along to Lasse J. Launimaa’s swirling keyboard ice storm. With a mid- song section of calm, the spiral destabilises and things progress down strange paths tying in many of the proposed elements effectively together. One second the album is pounding along giving your neck a good workout, the next the breaks are put on for the weirder elements to play with your head. Henget manage to do this without songs overstaying their welcome and the next leaden and bruising part is never far away. Injecting both grimness and grandeur into the title track this definitely keeps the listeners on their toes.
From cascading keyboards and musicians in comparative free-fall on the zealous sounding melodic ‘Lovi’ to the sombre folky-prog of ‘Nouse’ this one has a bit of everything going on. That might not make it the easiest album on first listen but it gradually unveils itself on repeats and is thankfully not a work that will confound too much. Nor does it take itself too seriously and is quite fun at times, leaving you feeling like you have wondered into the hall of the mountain king on a search for treasure as it concludes with ‘The Chalice Of Life And Death.’ Check out the video below for a further eccentric insight.
(8/10 Pete Woods)
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