All the conditions were there for the Americans’ long-distance debut Hekseblad would put a serious claim on one of the top five positions in the year-end poll, but, to be honest, Kaer Morhen It didn’t impress me that favorably. In the underground the duo – made up of Bruxa (vocals) and Frosk (all instruments) – is spoken of as a group destined for great things both in the future and in the immediate future, and potentially it could also have been like this for multiple reasons: the sources of inspiration are indicated in Emperor, Dissection, Gorgoroth and Obtained Enslavement; they already have two EPs under their belt, a split and other minor releases, so they aren’t exactly amateurs at risk (even considering that the members also have other projects on track); the album is released by Hypnotic Dirge records, which is a guarantee of quality, in addition to the fact of enjoying a beautiful Necrolord style cover (but Aghy R Parakusuma takes care of it) in shades of blue and purple that over time we have learned to associate with records “with an extra edge”.
However, in my opinion, this extra gear isn’t there. Kaer Morhen it’s not a bad record, it wouldn’t be correct to write it and it would even be ungenerous, but I expected more in terms of inspiration, majestic and bombastic melodies that I struggle to find except in rare moments. Only rarely do they succeed in composing music that attracts attention to the point of being admired, and despite the fact that they put in all the good will to vary the patterns a little, inserting flute sections, keyboards, even with a spinet effect, passages acoustic and so on, in the end the pieces are standardized on an average standard level which does not exalt much, and which after a certain number of listens struggles to keep the attention alive for all ten songs and 49 minutes of the Opera.
The album is a concept on the novels of The Witcher by the author Andrzej Sapkowski, a series that I am not familiar with as I am not at all passionate about these things; however, imagining that they can be framed in a fantasy context, I would have expected more emphasis in the melodic openings of the riffs, at least in those, something that instead happens rather rarely: and instead it is precisely these rare moments that reawaken the attention, which tend to remains low due to a compositional proposal that is not particularly compelling or commendable, right from the rhythmic foundations.
There is not almost nothing emphatic as one would have expected, the compositions are classic black metal of mid-90s origin without infamy or praise, which makes Kaer Morhen just another of the many honest black metal records that are unlikely to go down in history. What I really don’t like is the sound of the snare drum, flat, almost out of context according to my way of seeing things, it seems like the typical sharp hit of Stuart Copeland, except that the latter played in the Police and not in a black group, there is a certain difference.
In short, mine is not exactly a failure without discussion, since the album can be listened to, once in a while or maybe even just a few songs at a time; I can’t really say that the album thrilled me enough to write about it enthusiastically, and in any case I don’t think that the first places in the in are within his reach. (Griffar)
