Harkonin

Detest

Written by: PP on 20/01/2011 17:46:37

American black metal! That's something you don't run into every day, as the scene is almost exclusively located in Europe, Russia, and...well, pretty much anywhere else in the world than the US. That said, let us not forget bands like Morbid Angel who aided in defining the (death metal) genre, but in 2011, you rarely hear of the black metal scene on the other side of the pond. Harkonin, however, have been running for almost a decade already, having released three full length albums before "Detest", their newest effort.

As opposed to many of their European counterparts, Harkonin's style is not so easily defined. It's definitely black metal at its heart, sure, but there are plenty of examples where the band breaks out of the conventional tremolo riffing into death metallish passages, even thrash metal in places, plus a few Immortal-style sections where rock is brought into the mix as well. Truth be told, I'm not sure I'm too keen on the release precisely because of the mish mash of the genres. Opener "Into Oblivion" opens with a sick black metal riff all over the place, "Chaos Anthem" uses an interesting chord progression throughout the song, but otherwise it all feels...somewhat generic.

The atmosphere isn't as all-encompassing and evil as tends to be the case with their European peers, which reduces somewhat from the black metal punch. Additionally, the record is more than an hour long, so it overstays its welcome by about twenty minutes or so, thanks to each song being at least five minutes, with "Black Storm Jackals" clocking in nearly 11 minutes in length. However, it's not awful either, but a very unspectacular black metal effort nonetheless.

6

Download: Into Oblivion, Insurrection,
For the fans of: Darkthrone, Immortal, Hellhammer
Listen: Myspace

Release date 20.08.2010
Battlegod Productions

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