Perihelion

Hailing from the city of Debrecen, Hungarian band Neokhrome have prior to this released two albums, and have otherwise had little exposure prior to this self-released album, ‘Perihelion’.

Neokhrome play an atmospheric take on black metal, combining the aesthetics of bands such as Drudkh and Midnight Odyssey with the progressive sensibilities of Negura Bunget and Ved Buens Ende, with less dissonance and a more smooth, interconnected fusion of riffs and notations.

These compact, melodic flowing rivers of song have a strong air of accessibility not unlike some later work by Anathema or Katatonia, but never stray into overly emotive territory, with lyrical matter focusing on cosmic and naturalistic themes.

For the most part an excellent record, one minor detraction comes in the reliance and over-usage of clean vocals. Sounding similar to those of Ihsahn of Emperor as heard on ‘Anthems To The Welkin At Dusk’, it often feels that they’ve been recorded and added to the recording in order to give individual songs a ‘hook’. Personally I feel that the album already carries enough momentum for many of these passages to be included, and generally detracts from the quality of songwriting and tonal poetry that are put forth on ‘Perihelion’.

However, listening to the album as a whole shows adept, accomplished musicianship, and a well thought out distribution and interchange of ideas and aesthetics. In it’s 40 minutes of running time, ‘Perihelion’ makes for a very infectious and powerful listen, using ideas cleverly and sparingly. As is the case with artists like these, one of their main strengths is that they evoke within the listener a plethora of naturalistic mental landscapes. To paraphrase the mainman behind a certain Norwegian act, ‘stimulating the fantasy of mortals’ is what they set out to do, and they succeed here.

The ‘accessibility’ of this release is in some ways quite misleading and isn’t indicative of how qualitative Neokhrome are in terms of form and structure. Very commendable work.

http://stenchofishtar.wordpress.com/2012/12/12/neokhrome-perihelion/