Saturday, July 23, 2022

HELLEVAERDER - In de nevel van afgunst review

 


HELLEVAERDER - In de nevel van afgunst

Zwaertgevegt


Female vocalists in black metal are a rare commodity. I've always thought that was unfortunate since the vocal possibilities are amazing. Case in point here we have the debut full length by this Dutch black metal act HELLEVAERDER. Their vocalist, Miranda Visser, conveys the pure essence of harsh vocals. Then she'll tweak in low gutturals and even higher pitched witch shrieks. 


Musically HELLEVAERDER are unapologetic-ally raw sounding second wave black metal in style. I mean sound-wise this comes across as early 90's all the way. The twin guitar attack adds plenty of cold tremolo picked harmonies as well as biting riffs. The drum work is standard old school sounding blast beating. And of course the bass is there but hardly representative. 


On a whole this seven cut release starts off on an average note. I wasn't too thrilled by the first couple of songs. So it was on their fourth cut, "In de nevel van afgunst", were the band's strength came to bare. In fact it's the latter four cuts on this full length where the band defines themselves. I'm talking about well done song structures, subtle formula breaking as well as sonic textures which draw you in as opposed to repulsing you. 


Like I mentioned earlier this is the band's debut since starting out in 2017. They also have some short form previously released stuff, a single and a split with another Dutch BM act PERFIDE. Plus there's a compilation release containing their first two demos which to me sounds interesting to check out. As far as this debut goes it's a good start.


https://www.zwaertgevegt.nl/

LISTEN HERE:

https://hellevaerder.bandcamp.com/


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