Estuary

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.