Sanojesi äärelle

We are living in times of fake news, that’s clear for all to see. But did you already know that we are also witnessing the era of fake Finns? I’m sure they exist and give themselves shitty names like Nightwish, Lordi or Sonata Arctica. That’s disgusting and a shame, because everybody knows that only black metal is true Finnish music and it sounds like hell. While we are at it, Horna means hell and so the cycle closes. “Sanojesi Äärelle”, their release from the year 2009, is a double kick in the teeth. A playtime of almost 85 minutes asks for true black metal heroes to review the album. I don’t belong to this species while being just an ordinary metalhead. Nevertheless, I took the challenge.

Disc 1 is the main part of the album with ten pieces and a length of 47 minutes. No intro, no gimmicks, no interludes: Horna are at war and they see no sense in pausing for breath. This does not mean that each and every single song reaches the ultimate degrees of brutality, harshness and grimness. The strong “Katseet” as well as the outstanding title track, to name but two examples, rely on a mix of extremely rapid and almost surprisingly relaxed parts. But inter alia due to the bestial vocals of Corvus, there is an inner cruelty in each and every song, in each and every line, in each and every tone. Horna’s galaxy accepts no ray of light, that’s for sure. And it goes without saying that the protagonists also do not shy away from uttermost wickedness. Fierce eruptions of velocity break through the powerfully produced wall of sound and show impressively that the throne of 21st Century black metal stands in Finland. By the way, powerfully produced does not mean that the dudes overestimate their external impact. Despite or exactly because of its enormous pressure and density, the mix of “Sanojesi Äärelle” is deeply rooted in the black underground. An equally great band like Aegrus prefers a less nerve-shattering sound, but Horna love to explore the extremes in every direction.

Besides the aforementioned features, the songs of disc 1 score with homogeneity. Even the cover song (“Wikinger”) joins the ranks seamlessly. Therefore the ten songs form a misanthropic manifest from the beginning to the end. Perhaps some genre fans with an affinity for melancholy will moan that the atmospheric side of black metal comes off badly and maybe they are right to a certain extent. However, the sheer fanaticism of Horna makes up for this. Not to mention their song-writing skills that result in more than a handful of exciting highlights. The opener “Muinaisten Alttarilta” drags the listener directly into the blazing pits of Satan’s home, “Verilehto” has a weight of ten thousand tons and honestly speaking, I could continue the list nearly until the end of the album, although the tracks on position nine and ten cannot fully keep the quality of infernal pieces such as “Orjaroihu”.

Disc 2 continues the nightmarish scenario. Style and production are more or less well aligned with the ten previous tracks. Maybe one can say the quartet of the second disc has a gloomier touch. Vehemence is still relevant, but mid-paced parts also play a significant role. The shorter tracks of disc 1 have a bigger effect, but songs like “Ruumisalttari” are also anything else but oven fodder (greetings to the forum community), even though the main riff of the overlong third track of Disc 2 is relatively trite. Anyway, all in all I admit: it is a challenge for both artists and listeners to create or to listen to 85 minutes of that sort of music. Yet it is worth doing it and if I had to evaluate only disc 1, I would think about a 90% rating. In view of this Horna can be proud of this authentic and mostly fantastic double album. Nightwish, Lordi or Sonata Arctica will never release something that even comes near to the class of “Sanojesi Äärelle”. If I only knew the true origin of these impostors.

Shatraug is a very prolific musician. He has a lot of projects and they show black metal from the different angles. Horna is the main band of Shatraug and it embodies the purest form of the genre. In the mid 2000s this band was very prolific as well. 2005 marked the release of sublime "Envaatnags Eflos Solf Esgantaavne". In 2007 there were even two full-length albums: "Ääniä yössä" and "Sotahuuto". Both of them were specific in the context of Horna's oeuvre, by the way. In 2008 there appeared "Sanojesi äärelle", a grandiose two-disk edition. An hour and a half of hell, of malicious and sorrowful black metal.

The material of both disks differs. The first one has 10 compositions. It starts with powerful and hateful black metal, which still has the distinctive Finnish melodicism. The last feature, as usual, adds the tragedy to atmosphere. It's tough to describe, how malicious this music sounds, it's better to hear. It's possible to compare with the early Horna, but there the music was wilder, while it's more severe on "Sanojesi äärelle". It's impossible not to mention Corvus' vocals. His intense rasping way of screaming underlines the hatred. It underlines the sorrow too. By the end of the first disc the amount of this quality grows, a listener gets prepared for disc 2.

So, there comes the second disc. It contains only 4 compositions, but they are longer, than tracks of disc 1, thus both parts are nearly about the same length. If the first disc demonstrates more aggressive material, than the second one presents more depressive music. Its compositions are monotonous and comparatively melodic. Although they filled not particularly with depression, but with tragedy, whereas the intensity of the music isn't lower, than on the first disc.

Together both parts make a diverse and interesting album. Both has their highlights at their respective endings. The highlights of the first one are "Orjaroihu", "Risti ja ruoska" and "Merkuriana". "Orjaroihu" is rough, a bit thrashy, which makes it especially catchy. "Risti ja ruoska" perfectly combines malevolence with bitterness. "Merkuriana" is the deepest composition of the first disc, it is a sort of transition between the two parts. And the highlight of the second one is "Baphometin siunaus", because it brings a kind of ritualistic touch.

"Sanojesi äärelle" is an excellent album. It's lengthy and entirely made of great compositions, so it easily can be listened both partly and fully. It's possible to recognize both early Horna and Horna of "Envaatnags Eflos Solf Esgantaavne" on it. Probably it's somewhat of an opus magnum of the band. It's hard to judge, just because Horna is as good as prolific it is. Nevertheless, it should be listed among the best works of Horna. It also should be listed among the definitions of black metal.

NOTE: This was a review that I had written for the newly released album last year on CultMetal.com. After re-reading it, I decided to post it here.

Ah, Finland, home to….well I don’t know anything historic about Finland outside of defeating the Russians during WWII, but I do know Finland is home to hail-worthy acts such as Beherit, Archgoat, Sargeist, Satanic Warmaster, Behexen, Impaled Nazarene, etc. Also home to the underrated act Horna. Not underrated as in so obscure that they put out one demo/ep/LP and vanished into thin air ( IE: Morbid Saint, Necrovore, Necrofago) but underrated in the fact that not too many of my BM comrades don’t give them then time to listen to their music. after 15 years, 3 demos, 14 splits, 8 EPs, 8 LPs, and 2 Best of/compilations, you’d think they would get some kind of merit for their hard work and die-hard determination to keep the black flame of extreme satanic metal burning brightly. In fact just recently in the latest issue of Metal Maniacs, the so-called ‘witers’( and I stress this word because the lack of quality has gone down over the past couple of years with the Metalcore/Deathcore/scenester bullshit infiltrating the pages….yuck!) finally gave Horna the time of day to have a pretty in-depth interview.

My own personal knowledge of the band goes back to when I was a wee lad just discovering BM and i found a copy of their “Hindentoni” (Finnish for “The Demon Tower) demo re-released on Solisitium Records in 1997 on cd and all I can remember was that it was way too extreme for me then. I have a general rule-of-thumb when it comes to music; if it's too extreme, it's fucking good. Remember 1996/1997 was just when the Scandinavian hordes had infiltrated the state-side shores and was laying waste to the Death Metal trend and everyone was just starting to being introduced to only the Norwegian acts such as Mayhem, Burzum, Darkthrone, Emperor, as well as Cradle Of Filth, Dimmu Borgir, Satyricon, etc. Fast-forward to 2006-2007 where Horna is just a vague memory in my damaged mind from many nights of alcohol-induced dementia and narcotic schizophrenic states of thrashing the fuck out to my personal faves with my friends. All of a sudden Metal Maniacs and other publications are giving good reviews to them, along with advertisements by Moribund Records for their latest offering “Ääniä yössä.” I pick it up and I am mesmerized by the simplistic approach to BM. Dark, hellish, simplistic, and FILTHY. Giving it an almost punk spirit. I must have had “Ääniä yössä” spinning in my stereo/discman months on end, but goddamn it was good. Hell I still listen to it today.

So then, keeping up with the times, I added them to my friends list to my Myspace.com account(who the fuck doesn't do that these days?) and kept a close eye on upcoming material. One song “Baphometin Siunaus” was announced that is would be on the new double LP coming out in the fall of 2008. Just like waiting for Santa from the north pole to deliver the goodies, i waited, and waited and was a good boy….OK I take that back, I got into a few fist fights and snapped at a couple of people at work for being incompetent and lazy….but I waited and finally about 3 weeks ago, I scanned the isles at a local Mom & Pop record store and found the double CD digipack. Oh yes! I quickly purchased it and popped it into my truck’s CD player;

Disc 1 of “Sanojesi Äärelle” starts off with the mid-paced “Muinaisten Alttarilta” with the lead singer Corvus screaming like a animal in torture which picks up the speed into various tempos. And for most of the 1st disc this is what you get; Corvus maintaining his tortured screams, Shatraug and Infection keeping the quality riffs bleeding like an ever flowing stream. You have your headbanging slowed-down parts, your slow breaks, growls, etc.etc. that whole 666 yards of ugly, dirty Finnish BM. Track No. 9 “Wikinger” is a cover version of German band PEST (ex-Nordlys….not to be confused with the same Pest that released the killer “Ara” on Full Moon Productions in ‘03. Check out my review for that as well on Metal-Archives.com). The cover itself sounds….well….exactly like Horna. I haven’t heard the original version so I cannot form an opinion on such, but is definitely one of the stand-outs on Disc 1. Others includes the machine-like delivery intro riff to track 7 “ Orjaroihu” and the killer growl of Corvus on track 3 “ Mustan Kirkkauden Sarastus.”

Disc 2 of “Sanojesi Äärelle” finally offers up something completely different in sound production that could easily could have come from their 2006 offering “Ääniä yössä.” In the song “Liekki Ja Voima”, riff-wise it’s more of a melancholic mood than the raging violent type on Disc 1. “Ruumisalttari” is mostly doomy with a noodle-like (ramien is kvlt?) melody mixed in. The last two tracks “Musta Rukous”, and ”Baphometin Siunaus” are excellent examples of how Horna are able to slow down and show melody, in fact IMO they both could have been combined and easily been a 2 part song to the double album.

In total, “Sanojesi Äärelle” is for the more experienced Horna listener. For new-comers to the filthy Finns I highly suggest either their 2004 split with Behexen or their 2006 LP “Ääniä yössä.” “Sanojesi Äärelle” is really a shining example of how a Black Metal band can pull off a double LP and be entirely enjoyable making you want to listen to both discs all thr way through and then on repeat. Not to mention blows most everything out of the muck that is considered BM these days. It’s well-paced out, on course, and doesn’t fucking let up until your ears have been scorched off by the fire and brimstone of the horned diety these maniacs worship. Must have BM album for 2008.

Also I must note something that I didn't in the original posting of this review; Horna did their first-ever North America apperance last year and even ran through New Orleans where I was living at the time and even closer to my hometown in Tampa, Fl. I'm still kicking myself in the ass for not getting a chance to see them....but maybe it's better to just imagine the aura these guys gave off.

Although fundamentally different on many levels, this release is strangely reminiscent of the Darkthrone masterpiece, Transilvanian Hunger. From the songs built on simple but solid riffs to the unmistakable feel of the album, Horna have managed to produce what many will find to be a modern classic. However, there are some attributes that may be tiring to some.

The production is the typical style of Horna: slightly refined for decent clarity but still well within the raw side of the spectrum. There is no trace of Pro-Tools here. This works extremely well for the effect they were clearly trying to create.

Riffs are generally simple but still awesome and compliment the song structure. Everything fits together very well and nothing sounds out of place. Drums are a little lower in the mix but still audible and uphold the guitar riffing. Blast beats are found throughout, as well as some double bass runs and mid-paced patterns. Vocals are also well done. Corvus has some seriously vicious shrieks and although the lyrical content isn't clear to me (I don't speak Finnish), the vocals are the perfect fit for the music. All in all, the writing is standard black metal style but superb execution.

The biggest feature of the album is the fantastic atmosphere that is generated by the combination of these elements. From anger and sadness to feelings of isolation and darkness, Sanojesi Äärelle accomplishes the atmosphere that so many black metal bands strive for. This is true in the variance from track to track, as well as for the album as a whole. It has been a long time since an album has accomplished this on this magnitude.

The only drawback of the album is its simplicity. Some may find that the riffs and structure may be repetitive but this is a common complaint of any black metal with minimalist tendencies. However, this does not detract from the effect nearly enough to warrant low marks or negative comments.

Sanojesi Äärelle is a fantastic album and Horna have done well to stay true to their style in order to produce such a quality listening experience. This release is highly recommended to metal fans and is a must have for fans of Horna or black metal in general.