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orchestral

Horologium / Foundation Hope / Project Winter / Artefactum * Pere Lachaise (cd 2006 steinklang / divine comedy)

There should have been a new Horologium cd by now, two actually, a new one and one with old material. For some reason the cds do not arrive at the distros, so I suppose they are delayed. Then I saw this split cd at a stand at the Coph Nia concert in Arnhem last weekend, so I thought it would be a good item to fill the gap. Unfortunately the Horologium tracks are rather cheap. Foundation Hope makes quite minimalistic ambient (with some orchestral influences) which is alright, but not groundbreaking. Project Winter has a bit of a LOKI-sound and their tracks are the most interesting of this cd. Artefactum makes dark ambient that sometimes touches to noise, their tracks are quite enjoyable. “Pere Lachaise” is not a boring cd, but not a great one either. I remain in wait for the new Horologium material.

Artefactum / Horologium * Sangreal (cdr 2005 old europa café)

Artefactum / Horologium * Sangreal (cdr 2005 old europa café)
Horlogium * Songs For Hunters (mcdr 2006 bunkier productions)
Horologium * Paradise Inverted (mcdr 2007 old europa café)

I got myself some older and newer Horologium material. Where “The Fire Sermon” (2005) is soundscapish industrial/noise of style, this only goes for one of these minis. The other two are more orchestral and bombastic. All cds are packaged magnificently, “Sangrael” in an A5 package with nice ‘holy grail’ artwork and a printed, partially transparant cd, “Songs For Hunters” in a simple, but nice A6 package (3” cd of course) and “Paradise Inverted” in a 7” package, also with a 3” cd. Three times 20 minutes, so the length/price proportion is not too good, when you buy them all at ones, but on the other hand, you get some nice and very limited (200, 100 and 150 copies respectively) releases. “Sangreal” is a cooperation between Polish bands and is the most ambient of the three. The other are orchestral and at times bombastic almost completely built from opera samples and with a flinge of humour; sometimes silly, sometimes great. At other times the sound is nice and dark again. On “Paradise Inverted” you will hear Troy and Maria Southgate (HERR) and one track is made together with Der Arbeiter. You hear it, original music of a pretty high quality not only for people who like experimental ambient/industrial/noise, but also for those who listen to the more bombastic and martial releases. <27/3/07><4>

H.E.R.R. * Vondel’s Lucifer – first movement (cd 2006 cold spring)

Long anounced, this second full-length of HERR. As the title suggests, this is truely a concept album. HERR presents a hear-play version of the famous play by the Dutch writer Joost van den Vondel (1587-1679) about the rebellion of Lucifer against the fact that God placed the humans higher than the angels. HERR used English translations of the text which is a bit of a pitty. This fact is completely swept away by the mastery of this album though. The style remained HERR, soft to more bombastic neoclassical music with some martial touches and great vocal-work. This being a play, there are of course different vocalists who mostly speak their texts over the great music. The more I listen to this album, the more I like it and I already liked it from the start. Save for a few minor dips, a masterpiece and therefor rated:

HERR * The Winter Of Constantinople (cd 2005 cold spring)

“Heilig Europa / Romeins Rijk” (“Sacred Europe / Roman Empire”) is the new Dutch star in the scene, however there is one Brit in the four-piece-band. HERR did a few smaller releases of which some are reviewed within these pages and now Cold Spring picked up the talented band with this rerelease of a vinyl release and the anouncement of another full-lenght. The band has an original and nice sound, orchestral, sometimes tranquilly bombastic, here and there a militant touch, but mostly striking are the wonderfull vocals, usually spoken in beautiful Britisch. MP3s can be found on a few places on the internet (try Equilibriummusic for example) so you can have a taste. A minor point about “The Winter Of Constantinople” is that when you also have the four-band split cd “Hopes Die In Winter”, you get the same tracks again. Oh well, they surely are very nice and I am glad that there is another good new band from my country.

H.E.R.R./The Days Of The Trumpet Call/Dead Man’s Hill/Von Thronstahl * Carpe Noctem Festival I – Sturmgewitter Ziegn Durchs Land (cd 2005 carpe noctem)

At the end of the summer of 2004 I heard that Von Thronstahl would give a show in Belgium. You don’t get the change to see this bands very often, so I went to a small village near Brussel. There wasn’t a very big audience, but the show that the gentlemen gave was superb. Other bands were the allied Trumpet Call and two bands that I have seen a few times more around the same time. Both HERR and Dead Man’s Hill seemed alright to me live. Not too original in sound and of an average quality. DMH tries to draw attention by shocking people with their shows (which sometimes works).
Accidentally I heard about this split cd that is of course a result of the show of 4 september 2004. “Sturmgewitter…” fortunately doesn’t contain live material recorded that night though. Each band contributed a few exclusive tracks (or at least exclusive in this form). Since Von Thronstahl always has my interest and The Trumpet Call gave a great show, this was a good opportunity to listen to studio material of the other two bands. The cd opens with three odes to Constantinopel (nowadays Instanbul in Turkey) by HERR. Three very nice to great orchestral tracks! Then follow two tracks by The Trumpet Call which are also very nice. Dead Man’s Hill (three tracks) is less interesting. Their first track is a very dark industrial but rather monotous track and the last one is better and more bombastic track, but their second track doesn’t sound good to me at all. The last band is of course Von Thronstahl, new versions of “Wider Die Masse” and “Bellum Sacrum Bellum” with guitar and in the second case new samples of America’s sacred war. A nice split cd of which especially HERR positively surprised me. <15/6/05><3>

En Velours Noir * Else (mcd 2000 beyond…prod)

I don’t know why this name sounds so familiar. I didn’t have anything of this Italian band, the label is a metallabel of which I only know the names of a handfull of bands. What En Velours Noir do on a metallabel is a good question, but I suppose the bandmembers also play in metalbands or so. “Else” doesn’t contain anything like metal though. It’s more like minimal modern classical with some gothic and dark ambient touches and magnificent tenor vocals. The music is quite simple and not always truly enjoyable, but these vocals make up everything. The only band that I can think off with some resemblances is the German Artwork. I like this quite a bit and I wonder what the future bring for this band.

Dream Into Dust * The Lathe Of Heaven (cd 2003 chthonic streams)

At last there is a new DID cd. It was a long wait since the masterpiece “The World We Have Lost”. A less interesting (but still nice) 7″ and compilation contributions in the meantime and now a new fulllength. Derek Rush released it himself and did the wonderfull artwork himself as well. Musically DID has evolved but is still obviously DID. A strange but magnificent mix between tranquil electronic music, industrial, rock, acoustic guitars and the vocals of Rush and time also a violin. The cd is fairly melancholic and tranquil, but not without some harscher industrial sounds. 52 Minutes of great music of one of the best and most original bands from the scene.

Dernière Volonté * Le Feu Sacré (cd 2000 hau ruck!)

After a double cassette and a 7” the French Dernière Volonté present their first full-length “The Sacred Fire”. This is the first release that I have of this band, so I can’t tell you anything about the previous releases.
The cd opens with a wonderfull “Ouverture” (a perfect title) and the next song is a very tranquil industrial track. Actually the whole cd is very tranquil and rather orchestral. Still there is a lot of rhythm which can be either (march) drumming or beats, but overall this reminds me a bit of Cold Meat Industry music, especially because there is also some dark ambient with choral samples.
If you like (dark) ambient and rhythmic tranquil industrial like some CMI cds or Apoptose and Tribe of Circle, you don’t have to doubt about getting your hands on this one.

Der Feuerkreiner * s/t (cd 2002 misty circles / runes & men)

I have the “La ‘Nvidia” 12″, but I didn’t have this album. The 12″ of this stubborn Italian band is nice and so is this album. The music goes from orchestral tunes, to folky music, ambient, industrial and military sounds. Finally an original band. I don’t know why I missed most of the releases of this band, but maybe this cd was already sold out before I got to know them through the 12″. Also everything they released is very limited. I think I will try to find a copy of this cd, but I am very glad that I can at least listen to it now! <12/1/07><4>u