Goat Horns

Released in 1997, "Goat Horns" was my introduction to Nokturnal Mortum. Thanks to this album, my interest was sparked to listen to the rest of the Nokturnal Mortum discography. It wouldn't be until "The Voice of Steel", released in 2009, that the band would reach their creative peak in my opinion. However, especially for a debut album, "Goat Horns" is absolutely amazing. It does suffer from some flaws that drop my rating of this album quite a bit. In fact, if it wasn't for these flaws, my rating could have possibly been a 100 or at least in the high 90s. Anyway, this is still a solid debut and an instantly recognizable classic.

This is definitely a synth-driven album. Because of this, the symphonic elements that Nokturnal Mortum are known for implementing as well as the ever-present Slavic folk elements are pushed even further into the front than before. On the band's demos "Twilightfall" and especially "Lunar Poetry", the folk elements were there in fair amounts. "Lunar Poetry" was more symphonic and folk-driven than its predecessor but really, both of those albums contained a hearty helping of beautiful Slavic folk. The guitar on those albums, especially "Lunar Poetry", had an amazing tone and was mixed healthily with the rest of the instruments. The case with "Goat Horns", unfortunately, is quite the opposite. The guitars are this album's tragic fall. When we hear them, they are played quite well, so the proficiency of Varggoth and Karpath in terms of skill is certainly unquestionable. However, we really don't get to experience them fully. Plenty of other bands utilize the keyboard as the main instrument, such as Summoning. The case with Summoning is different, however, because they still have a foundation including the guitars and riffs are easily decipherable. The case is not the same with "Goat Horns". Riffs tend to be very muddy and they really require a lot of attention to hear correctly. Hell, even the bass is more audible than the guitar at times, which is extremely rare. There are moments when the keyboards are somewhat quieter and the riffs are easier to make out, but those moments are few and far between. Thankfully, the keyboards are absolutely beautiful and not at all tedious, which makes experiencing this album much more enjoyable.

Like I mentioned before, the drums are quite loud. I don't know if this was done on purpose, but like the keyboards, they overshadow the guitar greatly. Munruthel is definitely a skilled drummer and thanks to the otherwise bothersome high volume of the drums, we can certainly hear his skill. It's quite thunderous. The bass drum proficiency sticks out especially in the album's title track and "Unholy Orathania" which prove to be my two personal favorites out of the eight songs. He certainly can hold a blast beat for a fair amount of time which is to be expected, but his double bass is certainly the key element within his drumming. If only the drums weren't so prominent in the mix, the overall atmosphere would have been much better.

Of course, the album is keyboard-driven. Because of this, the keyboards are the loudest and most prominent instrument in the album's mix. While this may unfortunately be at the expense of the guitars, the synths really are magnificent. This is also enhanced due to the implementation of not one, but two keyboard players, one of which also plays the traditional folk instruments. The intro track "Black Moon Overture" really sets the mood for the seven songs that follow. There are even melodies and instrumental sections that pertain to various songs throughout the album. This is not a farfetched idea and has been implemented by various other bands aside from Nokturnal Mortum, such as Temnozor with the intro track on their album "Horizons...". The keys on this album help to create a very huge, epic, and heroic atmosphere that outshines everything else. Really if this album was a purely atmospheric/symphonic folk release with no muddy guitars underneath, it probably would be even better.

This is not a perfect album, but it is indeed a masterpiece, even if it is flawed in terms of the volume and prominence of the drums and the lacking of proper guitar production. It is quite a good debut full-length of a legendary Ukrainian pagan black metal band. For fans of the symphonic, folky black metal style, this is definitely recommended from me.