The Horn: As A Living Soul

Just when you thought you’d heard of all the sub-genres, here comes The Horn with a self proclaimed blast of Pure Ancient Occult Egyptian Space Metal! Obviously this stuff hails from Australia(!) and a quick look through this outfit’s catalogue of work will tell you that this compilation was released in 2017, with no less than six albums already having been released since and a similar slew coming before.

Behind all of this is The Horn’s AD MacHine, whoever that may be and he doesn’t write songs, he casts spells, with only a few of the tracks on this collection, which were chosen by Den at HAARBN Productions (who have released this album), having ‘normal’ titles such as “O You Wardens Of The Sky� and “Hymn To The Sun God Re�. The others swirl into existence as “Spell 63�, “Spell 131� and so on. So far, so ridiculous.

And then it begins, “Spell 100� seemingly featuring Golum on guest whispers as a synth gallop that almost falls into comedy speed metal territory tries to stop you chuckling. Honestly, on the strength of this opening cut, I did wonder if this album was being played for laughs, but a deeper look into The Horn will assure you 100% that it is not. To be fair and rather oddly, the weakest track has been chosen to introduce this album, with a more slithering industrial black metal blast revealed elsewhere. Vocally, for me, things do, however, remain in acquired taste territory and one I’ll never find a predilection for. Lyrically there’s talk of lakes of geese and kings of gods and so on and with spoken word sections backed by drone and hum, you either have to buy into this stuff or be rather baffled by it and I can’t hide my own personal bemusement. And with the central theme obviously so integral to what’s going on it doesn’t really leave much wiggle room to get under its skin.

The more I listen the less engaged I become and unless you can find a way into the rather individual world that’s going on here, then I can’t quite see the entry point. That said, there’s no doubting how much the man behind it all thoroughly believes in everything he’s doing and for that it has to appreciated on some level, but personally I can only file this under mild nonsense.

Track Listing
1. Spell 100
2. Spell 76 (Second Transformation)
3. Spell 109
4. Spell 135
5. O You Wardens of the Sky!
6. Hymn to the Sun-God Re
7 .Spell 63a & Spell 63b
8. Spell 76 (First Transformation)
9. Spell 131
10. Hymn to Osiris
11. Spell 29

Added: May 19th 2019
Reviewer: Steven Reid
Score:
Related Link: The Horn on facebook
Hits: 859
Language: english

[ Printer Friendly Page ]
[ Send to a Friend ]