Estuary

Estuary may have only been released just a day shy of a year after Beorn’s Hall’s first album, Mountains Hymn, but it proves to be a broad expansion of the band’s pagan metal formula. The black/folk metal style remains dominant, but the lengths are noticeably longer. The songs are largely driven by cavernous riffs and distant growls that are occasionally coopted by Summoning-style keyboards and extended acoustic segments, but they get more room to explore.

There may also be some epic doom influence that hadn’t been there before. The rather muffled production job has as much in common with late 80s Candlemass or Scald as with the stereotypical trash compactor sound and the more triumphant riff work on the title track and “New Hampshire Rain” draws comparisons to groups like Solstice and Doomsword. Of course, this is still a predominately black metal record and there are plenty of songs like “Dark Wood-Black Marsh” more preoccupied with fast blasting.

With all this in mind, the album probably would’ve benefitted from a bit more polish. The rough production results in a muddy sound that can make distinguishing layers difficult and the mostly acoustic “I Know You Rider” ends up taking a hit for its buried presentation. The song lengths could’ve also afforded to be trimmed in spots; “Roads Go on Forever” is an excellent closer but bookending it with a Robert Frost recital and nature ambiance seems redundant.

Overall, Beorn’s Hall could still use a few tweaks, but their second full-length album is a definite step up from their debut. The band’s performances are solid, and this doomy black folk style manages to be endearing, even if it would’ve been better with clean production and tighter songwriting. The New Hampshire duo will likely stick to this gritty approach, but I can still hope for something even more developed in the future.

Highlights:
“Estuary”
“New Hampshire Rain”
“Roads Go on Forever”

Originally published at http://indymetalvault.com

The New Hampshire based atmospheric black metal band Beorn’s Hall have released their second ever release called ‘Estuary’. The album is released through Naturmacht Records and on cassette through Folkvangr Records. The album-cover is a beautiful piece of art by Albert Bierstadt. After their 2017 release ‘Mountain Hymns’, the 2 band members decided it was to go for another run. You can say that the band doesn’t make the ordinary wind-and-rain-sound-atmospheric black metal but Beorn’s Hall makes their atmospheric black metal a little bit more pagan influenced.

The album contains 9-tracks and all average around the 7 minute mark. Don’t expect high production value on this album, like Summoning of Caladan Brood. Beorn’s Hall atmospheric black metal is raw and that is how black metal should sound. The howling vocals are being greatly mixed with the raw Summoning-like screams that you are used to in the atmospheric black metal music. The black metal is the most noticeable genre but the atmospheric elements certainly evolve more and more throughout the album. With the album evolving you here more and more elements that reminds you of Summoning, Sojourner, Caladan Brood. The acoustic (12-string) guitar is very beautiful with a hissing vocal style to give a small example of what you can expect.

To get the full experience of Beorn’s Hall, listen to the song ‘The Nurturing Soul’. This is also the longest song of ‘Estuary’ but it will give you a very good impression of what Beorn’s Hall is creating. The clean/speech-like vocals are really present in the first part of this song and it fits the whole atmosphere very well. This song is the most recognizable out of every other song even though it is an album that you don’t listen to the songs separately. Like many other atmospheric black metal albums.

I don’t want to say that ‘Estuary’ is unique in its genre but certainly has got elements that people who love the genre will enjoy. If the band continues like this, bigger labels will appear and try to sign Beorn’s Hall and maybe even improve the band’s music. The band has got a firm base and they know how to produce some good atmospheric black metal. The two albums ‘Mountain Hymns’ and especially their latest release ‘Estuary’ certainly have potential to be steady albums in the atmospheric black metal scene.

I really hope that Beorn’s Hall won’t become a band that is going to be a one day fly and ‘Estuary’ being that album that everybody wants and don’t look back after 5 years and say ‘Oh I forgot about that album’. Beorn’s Hall doesn’t deserve that.

The album is absolutely worth buying even if it is just for the album cover. The band really deserves a lot more praise then it gets right now.