Barriers

Admittedly, the first couple of times I listened to this album I wasn’t very impressed. I thought it was a decent, but stale doom/sludge display. But after some more careful listens I find it highly intoxicating, unnerving, unsettling, uncomfortable... So much in fact that I feel the need to go grab myself a beer just to be able to relax. And it feels very fitting to sit down with a beer while listening to Horns of Anguish on a dark and cold fall day like this.

My favourite song on the album is undoubtedly the title-track "Barriers". Jeez, it starts off so incredibly ominous with a beautifully melancholic and melodic guitarline before the distortion sets in and the mighty voice of Filip starts gasping. That black metal-esque screaming is extremely powerful and haunting, but is interrupted by a desperate yelping before he goes all out into a murderous growling state. The varying vocal styles are implemented perfectly, complementing the changing atmosphere of the song; which goes from depressive to aggressive to just plain desperate. This is really one hell of a song, but the remainder of the album is certainly not to be looked down upon.

Horns of Anguish bring tons of different genres into creation, blending classic doom with sludge, stoner, hardcore, southern and post-rock. It feels like mixing Black Sabbath with Electric Wizard, Cult of Luna, Spiritual Beggars, Candlemass and Yob. I know that’s a lot of name-dropping of really varying styles, but they seem to have done the trick by mixing vibes from all these styles. Eventhough all tracks differ a lot both in riffing and drumming the album flows through smoothly, and it never feels weird to have the atmosphere change from 70ies psychedelic to saddened or aggressive; it all just works and they nail it all. I can’t for the life of me understand how this can be the debut album of the band as it sounds so incredibly mature. The album’s jampacked with tons of memorable riffing, emotional melodic lines, wicked groove and adrenaline-rushing screams.

I’m in lost for words to be able to describe what this sounds like. There are so many nuances and layers to the music. This two-piece has an extremely bright future ahead of them if they can keep this up. I’m in awe and I bow down to the power of the Horns of Anguish.

Originally written for http://www.mylastchapter.net