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Korgonthurus > Vuohen siunaus > Reviews
Korgonthurus - Vuohen siunaus

Last wish: solitary confinement - 68%

Felix 1666, November 29th, 2019
Written based on this version: 2016, CD, Woodcut Records

Korgonthurus originate from Finland and they see definitely no reason to hide this fact. Consequently, they play black metal. But is it really country-specific black metal? Maybe not, because the songs have a strong affinity for melancholic, desperate or crestfallen sections. It is out of question that the band also knows the meaning of high-speed eruptions, but they are not the dominating element here. The pretty strong title track, always the first candidate that comes to my mind when looking for a representative song of an album, starts with the power of an iced whip which is swung by a berserk, but it houses less aggressive sections as well. Korgonthurus connect different aspects of the subgenre and, moreover, they feel free to add nuances of another genre. From time to time, the vocalist contributes some death metal growls which seem to come directly out of the mausoleum. Nevertheless, his ardent screaming prevails.

Despite the pretty opulent average playtime (seven songs in almost 49 minutes), the tracks do not suffer from (over-)complexity. The musicians are fans of their own leads, lines and riffs with the effect that a tinge of repetitiveness cannot be denied. Every now and then, the band is able to create a strong degree of atmospheric density, but it is also true that some parts do nothing but offering ordinary guitars that fail to captivate the audience. Blatantly obvious influences like those of Burzum during the closer do not automatically lead to new milestones. After having learnt how to master an instrument, how to play together with other dudes, how to read music and how to compose a song, one thing is still missing – the creative inspiration. “Vuohen siunaus” does not need to bow its head due to a number of severe mistakes, but it cannot expect thunderous applause as well. Let me come back to the closer, a song with a length of more than 14 minutes, but a substance for, well, let’s say seven or eight minutes. Not a difficult task to realize the difference, right? Its overlong ending, I guess it makes no sense to beat around the bush, is just boring. Perhaps this ending wants to embody the band’s understanding of endless pain (and we should never forget that endless pain means nothing else than being locked up with Mille P. in a stinking cell), but it remains on a mediocre – or should I say uninspired? - level.

The production is okay. The guitars convey both icy coldness and profound heaviness. In spite of their power, the vocals do not fall by the wayside. The drums and even the bass are not marginalised as well. This is still an underground production, no doubt at all, but it shows that the term underground is no synonym for amateurish. Nevertheless, it goes without saying that the mix cannot make up the song-writing deficiencies. This means that “Vuohen siunaus” has to take its seat in the second or third row of the Finnish black metal theatre. Too many sections are not thought through and so the bloodcurdling elements cannot turn the tide for the better. The album is no flop, but I fear that it is fighting a losing battle in view of the legions of (more) competent competitors.

The Finnish tribe is just too raw - 80%

slayrrr666, August 31st, 2016
Written based on this version: 2016, CD, Woodcut Records

Lead by one of the genre’s figurehead, Finnish black metal onslaught Korgonthurus has been a showcase for the mighty Corvus to display his prowess following his leave from Horna. Battling through line-up changes as well as a seven-year gap between previous releases, the long-awaited second album from this mighty beast arrives May 27, 2016 from Woodcut Records.

Continuing on from their previous release, this effort continues to showcase the band at it’s best exploring the Finnish brand of black metal. With their propensity for deep, swirling tremolo riffing and a gravelly, raw production highlighting the chaos, this gets a solid backbone here with the riff-work offering the kind of feral savagery and intense tremolo lead-work that manages to dive around chaos-riddled tremolo patterns and relentless blast-beats all given a superbly raw and tortured tone that best describes the Finnish style. The inclusion of more light, laid-back tempos serves as the appropriate buffers against the insanity to make them appear far more explosive and energetic by barely moving along with the whispering vocals and trinkling riffing barely sustaining any kind of life. That, though, only makes the raging rhythms that much more explosive with the ability to get that kind of explosive energy out of the other rhythms featured here which aren’t in the slightest bit that lively and the chaotic nature comes off as highly enjoyable. That in itself is the album’s single major downfall, in that when it does employ these it’s way too downbeat and barely energetic at all which is thankfully only on a few tracks but still manages to come away as the biggest problem. Outside of that, there’s also no need for a near fifteen-minute epic closing track that really doesn’t need to be that long and could’ve been shortened significantly, and all in all it’s not all that bad of an album.

With most of the problems here relating mostly to the few minor issues in terms of life-less sections while there’s a lot more to like here when it does go for the blasting-heavy sections, it gets plenty of enjoyable elements that will undoubtedly appeal to fans of the Finnish wave of raw black metal or those that like that sort of genre to begin with.

Ever drawn back to the forest - 88%

iamntbatman, June 20th, 2016

Ever have an album you're afraid to listen to out of apprehension about how it will stack up against a band's earlier works? Vuohen siunaus was definitely such an album for me. Korgonthurus aren't exactly one of the biggest names in black metal, or even in Finnish black metal for that matter, but their full length debut Marras holds a special place in my heart. Surrounded on all sides by shorter, more vitriolic songs on smaller-scope releases, that album contained two ponderous tracks of repetition-driven, emotionally draining black metal of the dreariest, most amazing sort. Fronted by the criminally overlooked Corvus (the best vocalist Horna ever had, bar none), that album was essentially exactly what I was looking for in music generally and black metal specifically when I came across it: desolate, forlorn, a knife twisting into an ashen, dead heart. The album's very organic, charcoal drawing cover art and indecipherable tree-branch logo added to the mystery and power of Marras and made it stand out like a mighty, crooked crag among an enjoyable but somewhat indistinct discography.

Hence the apprehension. Gone is the twisted tree logo, in its place something more generic, inverted cross dead-center. Gone is the obscure artwork, replaced with something you might expect on the cover of Continental Black Metal album #666,666. One track being the exception, gone are the exaggerating running times, everything here clocking from four to seven minutes apart from the 14-minute closer. Essentially everything about this released had me worried that the Korgonthurus I had known and loved was not going to be found here. Nobody likes to see their heroes fall and all that.

So yes, this is different from the last album. I mean, it has to be, just by virtue of the track lengths. There's not a lot of room for rumination on themes, at least not like they used to. However, despite all of the new baphomets and upside-down crosses imagery, there's still quite a bit of atmosphere to be found on this album. I'm getting subtle hints of perhaps Blood Red Fog, mainly through the use of waltz-time and the sort of swirling, queasy arpeggios BRF is so fond of. But while that band is all echoing chants and haunted forest despair, Korgonthurus here take a more muscular route. While Corvus is, more often than not, rending flesh from bone with his relentlessly abrasive shrieks, he also gets a lot of use out of his lower register growls, bolstering the more Behexen-ish route the band has taken this time around.

Musically, though, the minimalism of Marras is pretty far gone. The band's three-guitar approach actually works exceedingly well, often with multiple layers of riffing going on simultaneously. There's a ghostly, distant lead guitar weaving mournful tremolo through and between the rhythm guitars, carefully threading the needle whether the surroundings are going more for the wistful (the bridge of the title track) or the unhinged (the closing bits of "I.K.P.N."). While I wouldn't exactly call the production crystal clear as there's still a thick coat of grime and the intense distortion on the guitars adds tons of noise to the overall mix, there's absolutely a feeling of "bigger budget" compared to the last album. The combined effect of the triple guitars and the complementary production is that the band actually puts the effort into writing compositions that take full advantage of this arrangement. Melodic motifs evolve while riffs march on, linking passages while the rhythm guitars shift into beat-down mode or the drums slow from blistering blasts to heavy-handed pounding. Yeah, of course we've got Corvus' passionate wailing to narrate our way through these winding tracks, but the way the guitars play off of each other is just as vital to the compositional strength of this album. It actually kind of reminds me of the layered elements that have helped recent Cosmic Church material explore such a dense, inspired corner of Finnish black metal.

It's an effect that ingratiates itself to listener the deeper into Vuohen siunaus one delves. Around the same time these subtleties really start to not only stand out but prove themselves vital, the band takes a gentle turn away from the aggression and hatred of much of the front half of the album and makes a slow death-spiral back toward the shadowy desolation that I love so much about their past work. Fortified by the strength of its musculature and the densely-woven guitar fibers, the band pours on the sorrow heavy, lets that old reliable repetition back through the gates for added emotional heft. The result is the wailing ghost of Marras viewed through the lens of the seven years of Finnish black metal that has left its marks upon the scene since last Korgonthurus recorded a full length album. In the process it winds up being something like a greatest hits of Finnish black metal. You've got the Burzum-ish suicidal feel of the Korgonthurus of old or maybe Mortualia, the riff-heavy assault of Behexen or Sargeist, the dark melodicism of mid-period Horna and Baptism and the vague, more obscure sounds of bands like Blood Red Fog and Cosmic Church. While I can't help but wish that this album gripped me in the same profound way the debut did, I'm thankful that by the end of it I can claim with no uncertain terms that the band still has it in them to reel me in. Furthermore, I'd probably put this album on a short list of releases I'd recommend newcomers to Finnish black metal to give a try, as it draws on a lot of cornerstones of the varied yet idiosyncratic Finnish sound to weave a dark, beautiful tapestry.

Now, if the whole thing sounded like the last two tracks, I'd have to swallow my pride and admit my apprehension was for naught...