Search - Horna, Behexen :: Split

Necro Black Metal

Joseph Fletcher | North Carolina, USA | 02/19/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This split EP is fairly good, as far as splits go. Conceptually, a split EP is difficult to pull off since the album is from two different artistic (and sometimes conflicting) viewpoints. It can also suffer from a disparity in musical proficiency, i.e. one band is just better than the other. This EP only struggles with the latter. I'm just going to be frank: Behexen murders Horna.



Horna's first four tracks offer solid necro black metal. Nothing flashy, nothing ground-breaking. As far as this approach goes, Horna is pretty successful. The songs are full of atmosphere and venom. While I may or may not buy an entire album from this band, this EP is a solid representation. The real difficulty with this EP is that Behexen is so much better that they make Horna seem worse than they actually are. And to be completely honest, I can't really say much more about Horna because I just don't listen to the first half of the album. That's how good Behexen is.



Blood Ritual Of Flesh starts out with a fairly melodic guitar line that repeats a number of times before the drums come in for a short interlude, and then it starts. When the vocals and drums come in, the song almost reaches out of my iPod and grabs me by the throat. I'm excited just writing about it. Part of what impresses me so much about Behexen is that they have a fabulous sense of proportion to the mix and writing: all the guitars lines (and there are usually multiple) complement each other and fit well in the mix. This is really more of a testament to Behexen's songwriting than anything else. This is best seen in the way the songs are broken down. The songs are comprised of sections that have repeating chord sequences, though the sections rarely ever repeat. Each section takes various elements from previous sections, giving the song an excellent flow and keeping it from growing boring.



After I got this EP, I bought all the Behexen CD's I could find. If you're into necro black metal, buy anything by Behexen."