Monday, October 14, 2013

Forgotten Ones: Feikn - Helhesten


"The Sun is red above the vaulted Sky"



Feikn is a band that started in 1997 and the members was situated both in southern Jylland and mid Sjælland. They had the same line-up for both the demo, Visse Ting Som Hænder and the EP, Helhesten. Though they had planned to record a 10'' called Gamle Sagn Lever Om Natten, the unfortunate nature of bassist Inanna's suicide, prevented this record from ever happening.

It starts out with a mellow acoustic guitar intro, also worthy of mentioning here is the clearness of the bass, which gives the music a deeper and cloudy atmosphere. The drums play simple beats, sometimes including some neats double bass patterns. Though the snare hits at times crack the production sound which threw me off a couple of times. The first track, Helhesten changes between acoustic passages and more traditional norwegian black metal riffs and beats while Aamanden consistently has a more mid-paced beat and feel to it.

The vocals, which are mainly performed by guitarist Isaz, consists of a more harsh yelling rather than the traditional black metal raspy screeching and a more operatic style of vocals, which are extremely well done. I adore them, at first they felt like they did not belong there, but a after a fourth and fifth listen I realized they fit the music and atmosphere perfectly. Drummer/vocalist Charon also have some pretty decent clean vocals which appear on the track, Aamanden. The distorted guitars are somewhat left in the background and not that much audible, which I felt is okay since the riffs does not sound that intriguing from what I can hear. But atleast they sound grieving and sorrowful when they play slow. Solos are nowhere to be found, and that dissapointed me a little bit.

Helhesten is a dark and sad near ten minutes of black metal, though it doesn't feel that way. If you like black metal in general, and want to hear something a little different, then this is highly recommended.

Rating

7.3

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