And just when you might have started to think I’ve forgotten about to continue my reviews of WitcheR discography, I’m back! After the “Boszorkánytánc”, it’s not only WitcheR this time, as “Hőseinkért“ is a split between Roland’s and Karola’s project and Roland’s solo work (Vrag).
6 tracks total are split into two halves, with three tracks per projects and untypically, WitcheR starts with a sampled portion of a speech of – what I presume to be – some Hungarian political figure. With the sounds of gunfire and shouts the song’s musical part starts in a way of some industrial stuff, but quickly returns back into the atmospheric, keyboard-based, black metal. I like it, and I am little split here between liking both the pure keyboard tracks and more black metal oriented ones. Probably gravitating towards the black metal approach a little more.
The muddled sound of guitar and vocal fits the mood perfectly, this split starts the way I like it.
”Ellőtték A Jobb Karomat“ continues the format, with another sampled speech, this time shorter than the first one, followed with another atmospheric hymn, this time with a faster tempo (but don’t expect anything hyperfast). I like the riff here, it reminds me of Hungarian folk melodies, whose, if you have ears to hear, you can’t dislike. This song is actually the shortest of the split, clocking in 3:07.
Last track of WitcheR’s side is “Fogolyének“, introduced by the bell ringing in the background, bringing Karola’s haunting keyboard to the front. This is also an atmospheric black metal song, and the melody is so majestic! It might be even better with un-muddling the vocals and guitar here, but I guess that would break the spell of the project’s desired sound output. With this 5 minutes long beautiful song we’re waving WitcheR farewell (well, at least in this review) and our attention turns to Roland’s solo project, Vrag.
I come to suspect this split is dedicated to some historical event, as here too, with the opening of the Vrag’s side, we are greeted with a speech. Part of the “Nem Látlak éEn Téged Többé“ sounds very similar to a Slovak folk song “A ja taka čarna“ (not that I want to accuse Roland of any plagiarism), which – obviously – for me as a Slovak guy is only a plus (and I don’t want to drag in some Slovak-Hungarian past relationships here). The songwriting is similar to WitcheR (which should come of no surprise), but still is different enough. This one is on a raw-er side of black metal music, but even with me not being so into this BM subgenre, is likeable.
Does “Ha Majd A Nyarunknak Vége“ start with another speech? Well, you’ve guessed it. The longest track of this split (almot 8 minutes long!), but straight away I have to say I didn’t really like the sound quality progress here. The mudding of sound was so far OK, but this one is little too far, especially the programmed drums (kicks) are almost lost there. This song – with the intermezzo in about 4:00 minute mark – clearly aims to re-create the atmosphere similar to Burzum’s “Dunkelheit” and with a better sound (as I’ve already pointed out) it would probably succeed. Still, it’s not an earache and more seasoned black metal enthusiasts would probably discard my words and uninformed opinion. I can live with that.
“Honvéd Áll A Hargitán“ closes this nice split, and again, starting with the proclamation speech and then we’re greeted with a nice, albeit simple, riff (and again, it very lightly reminds me of a song from a Slovak fairytale movie “Perinbaba” – nothing direct, not like that, just a sequence of maybe three notes, but I like that). I wouldn’t mind the song moving in a little faster pace, as all three songs are slow ones, but at least the sound is little better than what I have complained above. Or maybe I just got accustomed to it?
Anyway, to sum it up – I’d put WitcheR material above Vrag, the keyboards really adds a substantial touch to the music and I like atmospheric BM much more than raw BM. But both projects bring a different approach and I don’t think they disappoint.
Official site: http://witcherzenekar.uw.hu/
