Goat Horns

Nokturnal Mortum’s debut full-length Goat Horns is among my top 10 favorite black metal albums of all time. Although it is highly melodic—and that may not be everyone’s cup of tea—the songwriting, riffs, and overall musicianship make this album the gold standard of Ukrainian black metal. Goat Horns is both folky and ugly/old school, and it is absolutely necessary to own this album.

Two of Goat Horn’s features that have always blown me away are the masterfully crafted intro and outro tracks. In all honesty, I tend to skip synth intros and outros in most albums—especially when they exceed 1 minute in length. These kinds of intros/outros tend to serve as filler tracks on most albums, and usually add nothing to the actual music. This is not the case on Goat Horns. Not only is the intro track—”Black Moon Overture”—a captivating and well-structured sequence of harmonies that place the listener in a Tolkienesque fantasy headspace, but the song itself is composed of segments that later show up in the black metal tracks on the rest of the album. The outro—”Where Rivers Flow into the Seas”—returns to this Tolkienesque synth style and skillfully provides the album with a feeling of closure. The album as a whole is, therefore, structured almost like a ‘thesis-driven essay’ in which the metal tracks are weaved together by the melodies in the intro.

The black metal tracks on the album are of an exceptionally high quality and—although symphonic—adhere to a pure second wave sound. Although these songs are relatively long, there is never a dull moment in any of them. Stand out tracks for me include “Kuyaviya,” “Goat Horns,” and “Kolyada.” The most impressive features on each of these tracks are the guitar riffs, the guitar/synth harmonies, the riff placement, and the overall catchiness of the music. In “Kolyada,” for example, the track begins with an ABAB folky yet hateful “verse” segment, followed by a clean-sung chorus, into a well-composed and melodic “bridge” section in which the final tail contains the vocal melody from the chorus played on guitar. After this segment, there is a short pause, and the song ends with an epic outro taken directly from “Black Moon Overture.” The upbeat energy and excellent song-writing displayed on “Kolyada” are representative of the album as a whole.

I only have one gripe with this album, and it’s not serious enough to deter me from thoroughly enjoying the music. That said, my gripe is that the drums—for some reason—sound programmed to me. With the exception of a few bands—like Hate Forest for example—I typically can’t stand the sound of programmed drums. Apparently, there is an actual human being playing drums on this album. I will, therefore, assume that he is playing an electric kit, because the album as a whole contains a noticeable “8-bit” sound that irks me somewhat. I think that an acoustic drum kit would sound much better with this music. Once again, however, the music in its entirety is so good that I’m willing to overlook this minor flaw.

Overall, Goat Horns is not only a masterpiece, but it is, in my opinion, the album that best represents the Ukrainian black metal sound. With the folk and symphonic elements not overemphasized—like on Nokturnal Mortum’s later releases—this is an essential piece of pure, hateful, and tastefully melodic black metal.

Released in 1997, "Goat Horns" was my introduction to Nokturnal Mortum. Thanks to this album, my interest was sparked to listen to the rest of the Nokturnal Mortum discography. It wouldn't be until "The Voice of Steel", released in 2009, that the band would reach their creative peak in my opinion. However, especially for a debut album, "Goat Horns" is absolutely amazing. It does suffer from some flaws that drop my rating of this album quite a bit. In fact, if it wasn't for these flaws, my rating could have possibly been a 100 or at least in the high 90s. Anyway, this is still a solid debut and an instantly recognizable classic.

This is definitely a synth-driven album. Because of this, the symphonic elements that Nokturnal Mortum are known for implementing as well as the ever-present Slavic folk elements are pushed even further into the front than before. On the band's demos "Twilightfall" and especially "Lunar Poetry", the folk elements were there in fair amounts. "Lunar Poetry" was more symphonic and folk-driven than its predecessor but really, both of those albums contained a hearty helping of beautiful Slavic folk. The guitar on those albums, especially "Lunar Poetry", had an amazing tone and was mixed healthily with the rest of the instruments. The case with "Goat Horns", unfortunately, is quite the opposite. The guitars are this album's tragic fall. When we hear them, they are played quite well, so the proficiency of Varggoth and Karpath in terms of skill is certainly unquestionable. However, we really don't get to experience them fully. Plenty of other bands utilize the keyboard as the main instrument, such as Summoning. The case with Summoning is different, however, because they still have a foundation including the guitars and riffs are easily decipherable. The case is not the same with "Goat Horns". Riffs tend to be very muddy and they really require a lot of attention to hear correctly. Hell, even the bass is more audible than the guitar at times, which is extremely rare. There are moments when the keyboards are somewhat quieter and the riffs are easier to make out, but those moments are few and far between. Thankfully, the keyboards are absolutely beautiful and not at all tedious, which makes experiencing this album much more enjoyable.

Like I mentioned before, the drums are quite loud. I don't know if this was done on purpose, but like the keyboards, they overshadow the guitar greatly. Munruthel is definitely a skilled drummer and thanks to the otherwise bothersome high volume of the drums, we can certainly hear his skill. It's quite thunderous. The bass drum proficiency sticks out especially in the album's title track and "Unholy Orathania" which prove to be my two personal favorites out of the eight songs. He certainly can hold a blast beat for a fair amount of time which is to be expected, but his double bass is certainly the key element within his drumming. If only the drums weren't so prominent in the mix, the overall atmosphere would have been much better.

Of course, the album is keyboard-driven. Because of this, the keyboards are the loudest and most prominent instrument in the album's mix. While this may unfortunately be at the expense of the guitars, the synths really are magnificent. This is also enhanced due to the implementation of not one, but two keyboard players, one of which also plays the traditional folk instruments. The intro track "Black Moon Overture" really sets the mood for the seven songs that follow. There are even melodies and instrumental sections that pertain to various songs throughout the album. This is not a farfetched idea and has been implemented by various other bands aside from Nokturnal Mortum, such as Temnozor with the intro track on their album "Horizons...". The keys on this album help to create a very huge, epic, and heroic atmosphere that outshines everything else. Really if this album was a purely atmospheric/symphonic folk release with no muddy guitars underneath, it probably would be even better.

This is not a perfect album, but it is indeed a masterpiece, even if it is flawed in terms of the volume and prominence of the drums and the lacking of proper guitar production. It is quite a good debut full-length of a legendary Ukrainian pagan black metal band. For fans of the symphonic, folky black metal style, this is definitely recommended from me.

While every segment of the multinational black metal scene ultimately traces their origin to the same prime movers, there is definitely something to be said for the very different creatures that tend to emerge from the common pool, and these distinctions tend to manifest themselves in a nationalistic way. Even before a number of bands ended up adopting the NS ideology, there were a strong sense of community and national identity amongst the newly born adherents to the 2nd and 3rd waves, and Nokturnal Mortum proved to be no exception by the time their debut LP "Goat Horns" put Ukraine on the map as among the more significant acts to come out of Eastern Europe. Their significance is born out of a rather interesting combination of older 2nd wave ideas and a unique approach to blending folk and symphonic ideas that come off quite differently than one would expect from a Scandinavian act.

From one song to the next, a veritable who is who of influences crop up at different points, covering most of the significant bases from Bathory to Emperor, yet never really sounding completely like any of them. Droning tremolo riffs intermingle with slower, almost "Hammerheart" oriented ideas amid a backdrop of extensive keyboard textures that paint a lofty picture about as ambitious as early Enslaved, yet also with a smattering of period instruments and old guard Slavic folk ideas that might hint at a Windir influence. Particularly in the case of "Unholy Orathania", the consonant keyboard and synthesized orchestrations might remind of a low-fidelity predecessor to the now saturated folk metal scene, but at the same time it is followed up with a blistering mixture of jarring symphonic twists and blurring guitar riffs that point more to a "In The Nightside Eclipse" meets "Nemesis Divina".

The underlying influence of Viking-era Bathory proves to pervade not only the genre-splicing going on from one song to the next, but also the overall pacing and character of the album as a whole. These song don't come across as moderated or geared towards a broad audience of any note, but opt for either epic or short durations, culminating in an album that has a sort of conceptual, storybook feel in spite of not being any more lyrically conceptual than a typical off-shoot of the early 90s Scandinavian. In fact, vocalist Knjaz Varggoth gets the closest of any 90s black metal screamer to capturing the sepulchral, middle ranged character of Quorthon's early work, more so than Abbath, who is generally the closest to being an adopted son of the aforementioned black/Viking metal pioneer.

But arguably the most appealing and surprising aspect of this album is its conformity to the production character that defined the early to mid 90s black metal sound. While the guitars are a bit more quiet and subservient to the keyboards than any notable Scandinavian prime mover circa 1992-1995, the mix of all the instrument definitely fits the mold of either Enslaved or Satyricon during that time period. It makes for a rather interesting beast in "Veles' Scrolls", the magnum opus of this album, showcasing a brilliant display of technical ability and masterful orchestrations that actually one-ups the progressive work accomplished on Enslaved's mid 90s output. Yet at the same time, it does an excellent job of maintaining a discernible melodic character that is easy to grab hold of and follow. In much the same vein as the towering Iron Maiden epics of the 80s, this is the sort of song that inspires long term devotional listening.

While throwing around the term experimental might be a bit misleading given the oddities that have taken up that mantle of late, this is definitely a significant album that did more than just reaffirm existing practices and actually expanded the genre considerably. It walks a rather thin line between being a catchy throwback to the earliest period when black metal started to take on a different identity than its earlier thrash metal roots, and a trailblazing effort that allows for a strong element of drama, virtuosic flair and an almost film score character could be adopted without being immediately pegged as a Mercyful Fate clone (though the theatrical aspects of said band's sound are present here to a degree, though less so than that of Emperor). Calling this essential listening would be an understatement, not only for black metal enthusiasts, but also fans of the currently heroic sounding folk metal pushed by Ensiferum and Black Messiah.

I desperately wish I could say this is awful, but it has the unfortunate distinction of being really, really good, bordering on excellent. I'll be the first to say that all of Nokturnal Mortum's material from and including 'Nechrist' are inexcusably terrible and completely devoid of any value at all, but the band's first handful of releases really are deserving of all their praise. They're not completely flawless, but they did sort of establish the Slavic symphonic black metal sound on their own and still stand as some of the best at that particular style.

Now it has to be admitted that this album is absolutely a one-trick pony and its biggest flaw is that it really begins to wear on you in the last few tracks. Some of these songs are way longer than they need to be ('Veles' Scrolls' in particular in no way justifies its nearly twelve minute running time) and are soaked with endless repetition. This wouldn't be a big deal were Nokturnal Mortum a more minimal, naturally repetitive band, but instead they're the bombastic, ultra-melodic being we've always known them as, and as such the sprawling tracks of sugary keyboard runs and screeches tend to get a little ahead of themselves in the length department.

None of the material that's dragged out is really bad, however. As the main establishers of 'the' Slavic BM sound (highly melodic symphonic black metal with significant folk influences), they crafted an extremely tight and well-written package. Keyboards are the leading instrument, and the guitars often operate in a nearly power metal styled context of harmonizing with the synth's root notes. The vocals are the typical Slavic BM screech, delivered effectively enough for the music, but generally taking a back seat to the instrumental sections. The musicianship is excellent in every area, and the production is raw yet clear enough to portray everything clearly.

The album is, of course, all about the melodies, and they're pretty extraordinary throughout. Older Nokturnal Mortum works have been called a simple Dimmu Borgir clone, and that's not ENTIRELY inaccurate; I can see the significant elements of the Norwegian band in their work, but overall the resemblance isn't quite as striking as some would have you believe. The music is certainly livelier than Dimmu Borgir's recent midpaced plods, with the tempo staying consistently high throughout the album, with plenty of blasting sections letting you remember that this is in fact a black metal record. The melodies, though, are excellently written; a blend between Victorian, neoclassical stylings and Slavic folk, resulting in the unique blend that you hear in bands like Dub Buk, Kataxu, and any number of other Slavic BM artists. The guitars have plenty of alacrity on their own, but the synths are really the dominant force moving the album forward, very rarely dropping back into a supporting role.

Perhaps the most striking element of the album, though, is the drumwork, which is genuinely some of the best I've heard in the more 'refined' corners of black metal. It's full of feeling and clearly done by a drummer instead of a guitarist who learned how to blast. It's not a barrage of any one type of rhythm, and instead takes significant influence from every corner of metal, from uptempo d-beats to more atmospheric fills. It's not proggy or exceedingly technical, but it's more musical than most and does a fantastic job of echoing the melodies of the album via rhythm. It's the sort of thing more bands should be attempting to replicate instead of just inserting blast beats wherever there's a space.

There's a certain air of professionalism to this album which is lacking in so many other bands; yeah, this is teetering dangerously close to pop black metal, but I have to give it the benefit of the doubt when the music is as undeniably strong as it is. Each track is catchy and repeatedly listenable because it's just that clean and well written. Though there's plenty of fat that could be trimmed off without losing any of the meaning, it doesn't take anything away from the quality of the music itself. It's a pretty great album and recommended for any symphonic black metal fans out there. Plus the pseudo-breakdown on the second track is funny.

Nokturnal Mortum's full length debut "Goat Horns" is a classic and for its time, very original and innovative. I remember a few years back people talked negatively about this band due to the NS themes apparent throughout later releases. As someone who didn't know a broad range of black metal bands at the time, and someone with a good amount of Ukrainian blood in them, I decided to check out Nokturnal Mortum despite what people have been saying. Although I first heard songs from "To the Gates...." , their debut "Goat Horns" was really what drew me back in and left me wanting more.

"Goat Horns" is something different all together. Symphonic black with folk elements would be the best way to describe the album, but it sounds nothing like such bands of similar taste. The interesting thing to note here is that there are two keyboardists on this album. As a result, the album is mostly keyboard driven.

Another thing to note here are the two instrumental pieces - "Black Moon Overture" and "Eternal Circle." These two songs are why I find the album so great sometimes. The first is a traditional symphonic piece that flows beautifully right up until the end. Powerful flutes and drums keep the listener attentive and eager for more combined with several other instruments. Very majestic. The other, "Eternal Circle," focuses more on a cold, darker atmosphere. The introduction in that song is absolutely haunting. This particular track is the last on the album, but in my opinion, it could have been either the first or the last track. If I wasn't sure, I would've thought this song was part of an opening scene of a movie.
Nokturnal Mortum has always had a history of putting powerful, meaningful interludes, intros in albums, but I find that their two best instrumentals are in "Goat Horns."

Now on to the real parts of the album. As stated earlier, keyboards play the biggest role here, combined with a few folk instruments originating from Eastern Europe. Guitars and drums play minimal roles, but they still serve as a strong foundation for all of the tracks. If you're hoping for riffs like in the vein of "NeChrist" or "To the Gates..." then you might be disappointed here. The vocals sound pretty distorted - but they don't really hinder the music in anyway. There are some clean vocals, too, but most notably in Kolyada and some low-key spoken words at the end of Veles Scrolls.

The production is generally pretty thin and weak, but that adds character to the album. the keyboards sound like they came from a SNES or Game Boy Advance game. It adds a ton of atmosphere, though.

It's a common trend in black metal, or bands that try to make black metal, that excessive keyboards lead to a travesty in the music and add cheesiness and makes the music lame. Of course, there are always exceptions and "Goat Horns" is one of them. Firstly, if you love keyboards, then this album would be excellent for you. Nokturnal Mortum pulls off the keyboard thing without sounding feminine.

But if you're of the mixed opinion, then perhaps you may still find the keyboard heaviness worthwhile. The keyboards make each song extremely catchy and a lot more epic sounding. The most notable example is Veles Scrolls, a personal favorite of mine: a smooth flowing song with many different feels to it, a strong atmosphere, and memorable keyboard parts.

I've found myself even humming to various parts of these songs. An example would be the title track, specifically the middle part. I don't know why, but somehow these songs can put a spell on you and really draw you in even more. On a side note, the build-up introduction is absolutely powerful.

Upon first listening to this album, you may notice too much of a difference between each song, but you'll eventually start to see how each song is greatly different from each other. (Try to think of Darkthrone's "Transilvanian Hunger", but "Goat Horns" is a lot more varied)

Something like "Goat Horns" can only come from Ukraine - I get an extremely ethnic feel when I listen to this. I wish the lyrics were available, but chances are they are mostly in Ukrainian anyway. (Yes these are some of Nokturnal Mortum's songs that are written in Ukrainian, not Russian). Ah well. And to the people who shy away from this band because they are too political, you won't find any politcal themes here. You'll just get a simple, but powerfully written, blackened folk album.

I highly recommend purchasing "Goat Horns" or at least giving some songs a try. You might get thrown at first because it doesn't sound like your typical black metal band, or standard eastern European band, but this album is one of a kind. It's even better than their newer releases and everything about this album is very memorable.

This is quite a strange album, unlike anything that I have previously heard. The song structures are very clever, achieving variation and progressing naturally with a hypnotic mid-tempo. The keyboard melodies are truly unique and inventive. Those of you for whom symphonic black metal is your genre of choice, owe it to yourselves to listen to this album. Personally I prefer my music to be riff-dominated, and aggressive, so this album leaves my metal thirst unquenched. Sure, right now I’m tapping my feet as I listen to this, and appreciating the dark, brooding atmosphere that is (sometimes) present, and the triumphantly proud keyboards, but the lack of guitar focus bothers me, and as soon as I finish writing this review I’ll be getting ready to crank up “To the Gates of Blasphemous Fire” or “Nechrist”.

Do I think the band should have just changed the mix, by turning up the guitar and fading the keyboards? There are times in the album where that may have been valid, but in general the guitaring is quite non-descript, whereas the keyboards carry a defining melody, and on this basis are appropriate as the lead instrument. It would have greatly appealed to my personal tastes if the band could have used the guitar to play some of the parts that were played by keyboards. Many of these melodies are quite inventive, and I’d genuinely like to hear them played on guitar. This would give the songs much more “meat”. Often the guitars just play the same two notes repeatedly in the background, or a rhythm consisting of one note. At times the guitar isn’t used at all, with the bass being the only audible guitar. This is especially true in “Unholy Orathania”.

There are exceptions, as there are moments on this album where the guitar is used to good effect. There is an opening riff to “Kuyaviya” that hits the listener, before being swamped by the keyboards and becoming too quiet in the mix. “Kolyada” has a slow and mournful sounding riff that kicks in around 3:35, and begins to drive the music, but this does not last long enough. “Veles’ Scrolls” is a particularly triumphant song, with some aggressive, guitar-driven segments, at 6:55, 8:50 and 10:30.

This album is enjoyable as an occasional listen, but I cringe when I hear it recommended to people who are interested in checking out Nokturnal Mortum for the first time. “To the Gates of Blasphemous Fire” and “Nechrist” are the quintessential Nokturnal Mortum albums, as I believe they contain all the important aspects of black metal. “Lunar Poetry” is also a worthy demo. “Goat Horns” is only for the curious, or those with a particular affinity for the symphonic black metal style.

Nokturnal Mortum is the first Eastern European black metal band I discovered, something which is no doubt the case for some other people as well as they’re probably the most well-known band from the area. For those who aren’t familiar with this band, Nokturnal Mortum used to play epic folk black metal with their lyrics influenced exclusively and then, around 1998-1999, slowly turned to NSBM, a change which was especially apparent on their third album, NeChrist and on following albums. While their earlier sound is considerably superior to their newer music, I must disagree with the idea that they ‘sold out to the NSBM crowd’ as NSBM is a politically incorrect form of music and therefore gets much lower distribution around the world when compared with normal satanic and even pagan black metal bands, so anyone choosing to play NSBM over normal black metal is doing the contrary to selling out.

That said, this album is definitely excellent. It’s composed of only seven tracks in its standard version, and two out of those seven are the intro and the outro, both instrumentals. This was kind of depressing to me when I first got the album but rest assured that there’s enough material here despite the low number of tracks, as they’re quite long. The album intro, Black Moon Overture, is a keyboard piece which, in its first seconds, reminds me of one of the tunes from the Lord Of The Rings movie soundtracks, a fairly interesting feat as this album was released 5 years before the first Lord Of The Rings movie, so Nokturnal Mortum can’t be accused of plagiarising the movie soundtrack. Other than that the intro’s a fairly repetitive and epic 5-minute ambient piece done exclusively with keyboards (Nokturnal Mortum has two band members doing keyboards and I can safely say they’re put to very good use on the album).

The metal part of the album kicks off after this intro and from the first seconds it’s readily apparent why Nokturnal Mortum is such a respected band. Kuyaviya is a monster of a track lasting 7 minutes which is as intense as this album gets. It’s incredibly epic and evil, the band working perfectly in unison to create one of those rare songs with a unique pagan atmosphere, this being greatly helped by the use of the previously mentioned two keyboard players. Worth mentioning is also the excellent instrumental part of the song around the 4:45 mark.

The four other main songs are all incredibly varied but all fit together very well as is normal and expected for any good melodic folk black metal album. The title track is somewhat more slow-paced than Kuyaviya and is much more based on its drum patterns, especially during the beginning of the song, and then continues to form another epic masterpiece lasting 9 whole minutes. The follower, Unholy Orathania, is, along with Kolyada, the most folkish sounding song here but is unfortunately not quite up to the level of the other tracks even though it’s still pretty good. Veles’ Scrolls is the longest and most epic song here, lasting just under 12 minutes and containing some of the most amazing keyboard work I’ve ever heard. The melodies contained here are breathtaking and leave the much more well-known symphonic black metal bands like Emperor and Dimmu Borgir in the dust, and that’s saying a lot since I like those bands. These keyboard portions are much better in the first half of the song though as there are a few weak parts in the latter part of the song. The final real song is the slow-paced Kolyada which has some of the most apparent folk influences on the entire album along with Unholy Orathania. Finally the album ends with the keyboard piece Eternal Circle, which is a very soothing ambient piece that closes the album very well.

All these tracks feature the same excellent vocals by Knjaz Varggoth, who usually does an excellent black metal shriek but sometimes also does great clean vocals. The rest of the band members are all on top of their game, be it Karpath’s great guitar work, Xaarquath’s bass lines or Munruthel’s(now in his own dark ambient project) drumming.
The element, however, that gives this album its trademark sound is the keyboard work and, as previously mentioned, the band uses two keyboardists, Saturious and Sataroth, to achieve their goal of extremely melodic folk black metal.

Goat Horns is Nokturnal Mortum’s first full-length album (Twilightfall and Lunar Poetry seem to be considered demos although both of them are basically full albums) and symbolises all that is great about the band. I’m not sure if it’s my favourite Nokturnal Mortum album but it’s definitely an album I love and one that should belong to everyone who loves melodic folk black metal. It’s also a great way to start with the band.

Ahhhhhhhh, Nokturnal Mortum. One of the more controversial "popular" bands to hit the metal scene in a long time. Once hailed as black metal saviors, demigods perhaps, now damned to hell, known as followers of NS, not musical innovators. Yes, there was once a time when Nokturnal Mortum both did not suck AND could actually thrill listeners with their very unconventional black metal attack.

One of Nokturnal Mortum's greatest strengths early on, at least until NeChrist, was their ability to transcend genres, sometimes within a song. I have a difficult time just pigeonholing a band like Nokturnal Mortum simply as "folk symphonic black metal", because even that grandiose description doesn't capture the entire spirit of the music. Goat Horns is metal, folk, and even a little classical, all at the same time. There's even a little bit of gothic feeling given by the keyboards, which adds to the overall mood of the album. Almost like the band stacked the genres on top of each other when they created their music.

On Goat Horns, Nokturnal Mortum could best be described, perhaps, as a Ukranian Emperor, inasmuch as there was the tradtional black metal attack on the guitar, the interweaving of keyboards along with the guitar lines, and the overall medieval/folk atmosphere the music managed to convey. Where Nokturnal Mortum differed from Emperor was in the vocal styles. While Ihsahn was a shrieker early on, Knjaz Varggoth's vocals had more in common with early death metal than with any kind of black metal vocal styles.

Even though the band has a typical black metal vocal/guitar/bass/keyboard/drums attack, it's the band's interweaving of traditional Ukranian folk instruments into their sound that take the music beyond your "average everyday Norwegian black metal band".

Like most every black metal album by a band with a keyboard player (or, in Nokturnal Mortum's case here, two) in their ranks, Goat Horns begins and ends with a keyboard-driven overture ("Black Moon Overture") and finale ("Eternal Circle"). Taken as atmosphere to lead us into and take us out of the album, both songs succeed quite admirably.

In the end, there's really only five actual metal compositions on the album, and they all dare to push the limits of black metal to a far-reaching extreme, with the shortest song clocking in at a little over seven minutes.

Unlike a lot of black metal albums, however, there isn't an all-out classic song on the album, one which the fans always go crazy over, like Emperor's "I Am The Black Wizards" or Mayhem's "Freezing Moon". Goat Horns inspires the listener to take the album as a whole, not as a collection of songs. If I had to choose highlights, I'd say the title track, "Unholy Orathania", and "Kolyada" are the best tracks on display. "Unholy Orathania" is especially cool, if only for its creepy atmosphere.

At the end of the day, Nokturnal Mortum were one of the best hidden gems in Eastern Europe at the end of the 1990s, but as time and politics wore on, everything that was great about them faded away. Goat Horns stands now, along with Lunar Poetry, as the best of the best they ever put out. Goat Horns especially is a black metal classic of the highest order, put out at a time when black metal was fading away into self-parody or prison sentences.

Maybe one day Nokturnal Mortum will realize that they sold out to the NSBM crowd and go back to creating music in the vein of Goat Horns. I wouldn't bank on it, but until that happens, Goat Horns will keep us going as a reminder of what once was, and why it was the best.

Nokturnal Mortum’s Goat Horns was the band’s debut album and it has granted a lot of underground success and increased Nokturnal Mortum’s ‘true’ reputation among the listeners. The album was released from Nuclear Blast records, but Nokturnal Mortum soon after declined the deal with them, prejudicing the label of commercialism. Well, but not to stick too strictly with all the small events in the history, I’ll dive into the depths of this epic album that strikes to you already when the keyboard ‘intro’ “Black Moon Overture” emerges to you from Ukraine’s pagan kingdom.

Goat Horns album consists of seven songs (plus the bonuses) that vary around seven and twelve minutes, if you don’t mind the intros. The songs are mostly in mid-tempos and the song structures are of very professional handcraft, polished to the very final. Composed and constructed with the line up of two very heavy sounding guitars, an extremely distorted bass, a skillful drummer (often misunderstood to be a drum machine, but booklet tells the truth!) and two keyboardists. The keyboards work very well along with the other instruments and they have both job all the time so either of them won’t get bored. The guitars and bass are left on the second place after the a bit distorted and screamed vocals of Knjaz Varggoth, Munruthel’s drums and the two keyboardists. This line up brings you a truly folky and melancholic, atmospheric and epic album that I dare to call quite immortal in the scene.

If you are interested of Nokturnal Mortum, this album is a must have. After taking listens with this, next you should try to grab Lunar Poetry and To The Gates of Blasphemous Fire. In my own opinion, these two and Goat Horns are the essential masterworks of Nokturnal Mortum. Their newer material doesn’t strike as deep as these.

The first full length album from Nokturnal Mortum is definately epic in scope and epic in structure. This album is overall, well, epic. The songs are mostly between 7-12 minutes long and contain a huge variety of riffs, beats, key patterns, etc. There are two keyboardists on this album, giving each song a lot of variety with one keyboard doing something and the other doing something different over top of that. It's all very classical sounding. The keys are pretty much the dominant instrument, although the guitars play their part too.

Many times the guitars are buried though, which is a shame since the guitars are so vibrant in their other albums. The bass has the sound of a firece roar, making its presence felt throughout the album in a thundering way. The album is very bass heavy in sound. Another reviewer said they are using a drum machine on this album. Well one look in the booklet and you will know it's Munruthel doing the drums and not a machine. Although I will say that at times it does sound like a machine, but it's not. Varggoth's vocals are also different. They're not like they were on Twilightfall, but more like on Lunar Poetry. Very raspy. One thing I've noticed about the vocals is that they seem to be distorted. They sound to me like Varg's on Filosofem, although not that distorted.

Overall this is definately an album you will want to get. If you are an elitist, then you will probably hate this, since the keys are the dominating instrument. But for those of us who can appreciate symphonic BM, then this a real treat that you will not want to pass up.

A blaze from the Ukrainian sky. This is what I think about whenever I find myself listening to Nokturnal Mortum's excellent debut, "Goat Horns". This album came out as a huge surpise to me as well as many other Black Metal fans, and for many reasons. There is sheer brilliance to be found here, in several forms and in generous amounts. And lets us not forget about another key element that is often needed and rarely found, especially in this genre: originality.
With a six piece that sports not one but two keyboard players, it would be all too easy to dismiss Nokturnal Mortum as yet another attempt at highly unoriginal pseudo-orchestral Black Metal. But "Goat Horns" refuses to accept such a fate. Sure, this album has keyboards, a lot of them, and more than once they are the driving force that pushes the compositions onwards. What makes them - and the whole album - stand above the rest is the very tasteful and effective use that is made of them. Their different voices and grades of presence make a strong contribution to the different moods and atmospheres to be found in each of the lengthy songs (the shortest one is around 7 minutes long). They also imitate the sounds of traditional instruments that come in every now and then (one of the band's trademarks), an dthe result is very realistic.
Nokturnal Mortum, however, is not just about keyboards. The guitars create subtle variations as the riffs go along (something the band must have learned from Darkthrone); the bass, whether clean or distorted, provides a solid backbone to the intricate melodies and sometimes joins the guitars in the forefront; the drums, while never reaching insane speeds, are extremely precise and varied, with a certain looseness in the switches between quadruplet and triplet based patterns (again, see Darkthrone).
The vocals are of course raspy and harsh, although sparse hints of clean vocals can also be found. But the truth is that Nokturnal Mortum have something of their own going on, and any written description will hardly match the essence of "Goat Horns".

The symphony begins with "Black Moon Overture", a keyboard intro to end all keyboard intros, or almost. For an intro, this one is way lengthy and very developed, as several different melodic ideas (performed by a lot of different sounds and patches) flow one after one into a superb unicum, with no room for abrupt passages or disharmonic key changes. Another very interesting characteristic of the intro is that (almost) every one of its themes will return again in each of the following song, although it will take some listens for you to understand where and when to to the length and complexity of the songs and the difference of the arrangements.
The first real song, "Kuyaviya", immediately unleashes Nokturnal Mortum's potential on all cylinders, and such intensity NEVER goes down all the way through the album. The sound of the album is pretty raw, but not in a way that you'll have to go insane to decipher what's going on. It's harsh, but very clear, and also very unique. The various elements complete each other, and nothing sounds intrusive when it joins the ensemble. It's like a picture painted with thick brush strokes, where the edges are intentionally left slightly blurred. You can clearly see everything, but the more you get close, the less you can understand where one trait finishes and the other begins. So works the sound of "Goat Horns", and while music can't be really compared to a picture (music is movement, a picture is static), it's the best comparison I could come up with, also considering the strong landscape-like feature of the music. It's not an easy task to describe this album.

Speaking of the songs themselves, going through a track by track would be a waste of time for both me and you. There is so much going on in each song that it would take years for anyone to sit through this album and pick up every single detail. There's also the fact that the songs, while different, tend to mingle together to form an unique, grandiose texture, which is why I always listen to this album as a whole: it sounds even more grandiose that it is. This is not saying that the songs all sound the same, absolutely not. Each and every one of them has elements that stand out and stick in your mind. The title track, for example, has a haunting acoustic beginning backed by the sound of blowing wind and church bells, and further on has a very entertaining folk section; "Kolyada" has clean vocals in the verses (they're low in the mix, but can be heard very easily anyway); "Veles' Scrolls" has probably the most grandiose and complex keyboard work of the whole album; "Unholy Orathania" begins with a folkish section featuring great percussions, and has a kind of semi-clean vocal section further on; it also shows a clever contrast between natural sounding keyboard patches (uch as the instruments at the beginning) and overtly synthetic ones (which can be heard in the bacground when the Metal instrumentation kicks in).
"Eternal Circle", the keyboard instrumental that closes the album, graces this masterpiece with one last high note.

This album is one of a kind. It's original, raw, melodic, atmospheric, immense in its symphonic scope and immediate in its enthralling charisma. Essential.