Horizons...

Темнозорь (Temnozor) is a Russian band that has created a very unique blend of black metal, pagan metal, and tradition Slavic folk music. There are plenty of bands that have blended extreme metal with actual folk music, such as Nokturnal Mortum, Kroda, Eluveitie, and so on, however, Temnozor has created a truly amazing album here that stands all on its own. I discovered this group back in the summer of 2011 and they have stuck with me ever since. I have yet to get bored with any Temnozor album, however, "Horizons" is their best work for me.

The record begins with a folk instrumental titled "As an Echo of Glory and Forgotten Oaths". This actually showcases some of the melodies we will hear throughout a few of the following tracks, mainly the second and third songs. It seems like they did this as a foreshadowing of events, and I'm sure some people will view it as laziness. However, I think it's a cool idea. Nokturnal Mortum actually did the same thing with "Goat Horns" most notably. "Werewolf" is the first actual song. It begins with blastbeats, fast guitar riffs, and hold on, an actual flute? The flute, which we also heard on the instrumental opener, is a main instrument in Temnozor's music. There are a lot of bands that incorporate the flute, but usually, they are recorded using a synthesizer. These guys are among a select few number of bands that actually utilize the real flute, and they do it beautifully. Anyway, the flute is mixed in pretty well with the other instruments. It is not too loud and compliments the ferocity of the more black metal tinged guitars. Acoustic guitars are also a big player within this band's sound. "What the Burial Mounds Might Whisper..." and "The Horizons of the Spring...", while not the only songs to contain acoustic guitars, do contain possibly the most beautifully executed acoustic sections. They are noticed right away as they make up the intro to both of those songs. However, as beautiful as the guitar is on this album, the absolute highlight has to be the aforementioned flutes.

In reality, this is more of a folk band that incorporates metal elements. The vocals are quite varied, however; Kaldrad handles harsh vocals and I assume Ratibor, who also handles the flues, preforms the clean vocals. The singing is really interesting and original for this kind of metal. It's very operatic and full of pride. The harsh vocals range from being decent to good, but I'm really not as keen on them as I am the cleans. They seem sound different between tracks as well. For example, the screams on "Werewolf" and "White Thunder Roars" contrast each other greatly. Although, upon looking into this, Varggoth of Nokturnal Mortum fame performs vocals on the latter. After realizing this, it is fairly obvious to anyone who listens to Nokturnal Mortum.

For fans of folk music, this album is definitely a good investment. For fans of black metal, it may also be a pleasure to listen to as well. Calling this album folk/black metal is probably the most appropriate way to label it, but like I said earlier, this is really more a folk album with metallic elements. This will remain in history as one of the most beautiful albums ever recorded, and I also recommend the two full-lengths that follow this one.

While their Sorcery Is Strengthening The Ass of Mother Russia was a generic NS black metal introduction, Temnozor sought new ways of expression, in order to transcend the casual spirit of their musical and ideological milieu.
Well, despite the numerous positive opinions that surround this album, I was deeply disappointed by its lack of even black metal spirit. With the exception of the vocals provided at rare occassions by Varggoth, the clean vocals are not fit for black metal, could be outshined easily by any Boy George around, and the very "shy" crescendo that the vocalist uses in Werewolf, for example, to go from lower to higher notes, sounds irritating, as if he was trying to make a decent performance at some sort of singing contest or such.

The folk influences are not influences, they are actually worthless, sleep or wonder-inducing tunes. The recording style acts great, I must say it, making the acoustic interludes gain some of the mysterious atmosphere so present in Belenos' works, but except the sounding, there is nothing akin to folk geniality. What The Burial Mounds May Whisper is just a standard folk song so it wouldn't even belong to black metal. Landscapes Of Ice is somehow reminiscent of Blut Aus Nord, which is good, though it doesn't compare to anything those did (especially on Ultima Thulee). The only song both folk and truly refreshing is the first one, As An Echo Of Glory And Forgotten Oaths, with its fine blowing instrument orchestra performance. The drums' sound has been very weakened, too bad, because the drummer seems to be inventive, despite not using the blast deal.

One thing that mystified me was the habit of this band to do like Nokturnal Mortum, meaning cut and paste of some melodies. I found it as a maneuver of folks whose inspiration had been lacking and needed to fill the space somehow. Werewolf sounds nice at the beginning, but gets boring very quickly. White Thunder Roars does also reproduce a melodic theme from the first track, and it gets also repetitive without being brilliant; however, the black metal vocals are good, and the clean vocals sound as annoying as ever, but the ending does the trick. Horizons Of The Springs begins with a good acoustic introduction and it manages to gain attention, with the sonorities sometimes warping into menacing, combined with the guitar (now this is more like black metal !). A point is lost because of the repeated melodic theme from the first track, lest I forget that the exercise of the band, consisting of emitting a brief melody and then letting some moments filled with silence and then repeating the melody comes as ultimately tiring for the listener. Fatherland is definitely a high point, and the theme sounds so fit for Panzerfaust by Darkthrone, that I cannot help nodding my head to this song: plodding, solemn, everything about NS black metal (an interesting fact is that sounds pretty similar to Urfaust's song, Ragnarok Mystiker, from Verraterischer, Nichtswurdiger Geist; though, they cannot be accused of having inspired themselves from Urfaust, since Horizons is older that the last Urfaust). Horizons is quite an inspired ending, consisting of an orchestral piece, like the beginning track. Although I am not fond of Wagnerian hyperexalted crap, I could appreciate this for its more meditative and otherwordly moments.

All in all, sorta novelty or exquisite performance for the untrained ears that got burnt thousands times listening to casual black metal, be it antihuman or NS, but the reviewer won't appeal too much to this again. If I wanted my folk to be original and atmospheric, I'd just put my Six Organs Of Admittance stuff and would be much more satisfied. Regarding the black metal part, I simply have no comments further.

I have always liked Folk music, especially Russian Folk music so I had to listen to an album of this great band. I decided to buy "Horizons..." and my surprise was very big! I knew that this band will become one of my favorite band even if I'm a big fan of raw and aggressive Black Metal bands like Zarach' Baal' Tharagh, The End 666, Honos Aquilae and many others...

"I Ehom Slavi, I Drevnih Klyatv", the first track is an introduction with typical instruments that make us dream of these forgotten kingdoms that made the glory of Slavic lands.

The second track "Werewolf" begins with powerful guitars and amazing flutes. The most energetic and fastest track of this album. There are two singers. There are a clear voice that is very powerful and a big and aggressive Black Metal voice. The music is very fast and the flutes dominate this song. I can imagine the Russians who are dancing in this excellent track.

The third track is "White Thunder Roars". It's in the same way of Werewolf but with English lyrics. Again, there are two singers. The music is fast as the precedent but more melodic. It should enjoy all fans of Folk Black Metal music, I'm sure of that.

The following track is maybe the best Russian Folk Metal track I have heard in my life. "Shto Shepch'ut Kurgani, Zarnitsam Rassveta" begins with traditional work with the guitar and the singer is different from the two precedent tracks. As you can see in the line-up, a lot of members are involved in Temnozor and members of Nokturnal Mortum, Woods of Fallen, Branikald and Forest took part for this album. As I was writing, the singer is different and the voice is calmer and slower. That brings a kind of homage, honour to the song. At one moment the voice is "heavy" and I don't need to write that I piss in my trousers when I listen to such vocals because it's so great!!!

The fifth track "Gorizont Vesni" begins with a pretty intro that is made with a traditional guitar and keys. I really enjoy it, but the song is a bit worse than the others. Indeed, the clean vocal is too slow for me. There is not energetic enough. I'm not sure but I think that Varggoth sings in this track. He makes the Black Metal voice and it's very aggressiv and powerful. The flutes are really good when Varggoth (if it's him) sings.

The sixth track "Ledyanoy Prostor" can be an interlude or an intro for the seventh track. This track brings us in the middle of these Russian wintry forests and to these landscapes covered with snow. Emotional track but too short...

The seventh track "Fatherland" is the best track I have heard in my life. An absolute masterpiece. As I wrote, I mainly listen to raw and violent bands but "Fatherland" is above all that. But, personally, it would be better if it was sung in Russian. There is a clean, slow and powerful vocal and some calm parts with flute. But the best for me, it's this little guitar that appears with the choruses just after the flute. It's the best. So emotional, so cold, so pleasant. Sometimes, I like so much the music that I want to cry. I don't know how Temnozor can make a music so great. We can hear these parts at 1mn50, 3mn38 and 6mn44. It sounds better at 6mn48. Eternal thanks to Temnozor for this masterpiece.

The album finishes with "Horizons", an atmospheric and cold track. A perfect outro for an album like this one.

So, if you are a fan of Folk Pagan Metal and especially of Slavic bands, I strongly recommend you this album. I guarantee you that you won't be disappointed.

If memory serves me correctly, I got to know Temnozor some months ago, when I was one day scouring around metal-archives for Russian bands. So I came across Temnozor: as their style was "folk metal" I didn't waste a single second and rushed to get one of their albums. What I got was "Horizons", a truly magnificent piece of music which should appeal to any folk metal fan. I must say I did not get into this album immediately. At first I listened to it once and discarded then for weeks. But fairly soon it came back to my playlist, with a mighty revenge! With a few listenings it grew on me and I finally understood how good this actually was.

"Horizons" is one of the most powerful and atmospheric metal albums I have ever heard. The music seems to carry you away onto the vast wintery fields of Russia, to wander around the massive forests of Siberia and to witness purple sunsets on a chilly day. The beauty created by using traditional folk instruments is nothing less than enchanting. Made me wonder if electric guitars and occasional extreme vocals are actually necessary for this majestic music. Without these, "Horizons" could easily qualify as a folk music release. But I'm nonetheless thankful that it's metal, otherwise I probably would never have learned about it.

I would go as far as to say that the metallic elements on this album are soothing... the folk parts which clearly dominate the music are so inspiring that without guitar riffing I could easily forget that I'm still listening to rock music and I haven't yet left for fairytale lands. This is especially true with songs that have clear vocals: while the extreme ones certainly aren't bad or annoying, they're pretty much nothing to the clear ones. The latter are so in tune with the musical spirit of this album, touching your soul with their depth, that when hearing them you'd probably even stop having sex with your beloved one, just to absorb every microsecond of this voice.

There is nothing more to say - "Horizons" is a flawless and amazing release, worthy of recognition among the best folk metal releases of all time.

My introduction to this band was their demo, which I found to be a rather humorous affair at the time, with a rice-paper thin guitar tone and silly screeching pipes and vocals. Imagine my surprise when I heard this album and realized how far they'd actually come. I am not really a fan of folk metal, but I think when it's actually done well it can be extremely satisfying, and this is the best folk metal release I can recall hearing in a long time. This will come as a shock to a great many people who dismiss bands from the NS scene as being a bunch of talentless wankers who place their politics before their music. I suspect that, were a lot of these critics to hear this album, they would be moved by its power until they became conversant with the band's ideology, at which point they would flatly deny that it is better than 90% of the folk-fiddling beer-swilling garbage infecting the scene nowadays, ironically, putting their own politics above art and thus showing themselves to be quite hypocritical. at any rate, I don't think many "outsiders" will end up hearing this album because of the small label that released it and because of the obvious racial connotations linked with the band, even if the band itself seems to refrain from making over the top Darken-esque "way of the white warrior" statements, at least in the couple of English interviews I have seen. In many ways, though I'm sure the band would disagree with me, I think the lack of publicity this will receive is a shame, since the album is beautiful, stirring and would probably impress most afficionados of ethnic, prideful metal.

The principal feeling one gets from listening to this album is an overpowering sense of glory, of the flame of pride and spirit kindled to a beautiful, positive, yet also warlike and dangerous strength. The melodies in these songs, often led by the this-time quite profficient use of the pipe (I mean apan-flute, not bagpipes) will etch themselves into your brain and from there reach to the core of your being, so that the very act of listening to this music makes one feel revitalized, strengthened and ready to grind down the opposition. The craftsmanship of this music is truly amazing and such a far cry from the earlier work. The intro perfectly sets the scene, and careful listeners will note that this introduction is actually a showcase for some of the melodies and "riffs" that will later crop up during the course of the album. This piece is an energetic and boisterous keyboard ditty which, although I am not usually a great fan of such things, perfectly sets the stage for the coming attack. The sound on the album is perfect: crystal clear and representative for all instrumentation....even the cymbal hits are perfectly accentuated, and the guitar tone is thick and vibrant. Vocals are mostly either a hoarse bellowing (which reminds me, slightly, of the aggressive but clean toned vocalizations on Amorphis's "Elegy" of all things), and a resonant, proud operatic tenor that thankfully smacks of someone with professional vocal training, rather than the usual painful ululations employed by many a folk metal band. There are a few black metal screams as well, on track five I believe, the longest on the album and one of the clear highlights for me. Other standouts include "White Thunder Roars" and the fourth track, whose title in English is "Whatever the Burial Mounds Might Whisper". The former features a melody previously heard in the intro (though transposed to a different key I believe) as its main riff, is very repetitive and catchy and includes some quite understandable english lyrics. The latter is an absolutely beautiful piece led by gentle acoustic guitar and proud soaring tenor vocals..definitely the calmest track featured here and it just drips with strong yet somehow mournful emotion. There are also a couple of very well done ambient pieces: One being short and focussing on clean guitar, the other being a majestic and ghostly album closer that brings one down from the fist-pumping high this music generates and invokes visions of icey, lonely tundra, perhaps after the passing of a great army.

Unfortunately, my enthusiasm about this album has waned over the past couple of years, hence this review has finally gotten a much-needed edit to reflect my current views on the music. I admire this album for its genuine folk character, but as with much of this sub-genre, that character is eventually what brings the music down. The melodies are bright and catchy, the spirit is there in spades, but there just isn't enough going on in any of these songs to justify their duration, except maybe for the aforementioned acoustic-led piece, which is short enough that it doesn't overstay its welcome at all. "White Thunder Roars" drills the same theme into your head for many minutes before it finally changes key and feel at its closing; and it sounds great until everything stops, the flute repeats the simple folky refrain a few more times and the whole band starts everything over again. maybe this is fine if you're in a folk dance, but it isn't really what I want from my metal, and the melodic ideas are simply too bright and two-dimensional to maintain their captivating quality through a seemingly endless cycle of repetitions. Still, Temnozor should be commended for their work on this one, which manages to stand head and shoulders above much of the overtly folk-driven metal coming out of Eastern or Northern Europe today and being good for more than just a beer and a few laughs. There's not one fiddle note to be found here, either ... thank the gods and Mother Russia!