Spirit of Koguryo

I can be perfectly honest and say right now that Korean metal is not something I listen to frequently, and I had never heard of Taekaury or any of Heukmae's other projects before I randomly picked this album up while looking for some interesting Asian metal releases. My expectations were, accordingly, not very high, but man was I pleasantly surprised.

Taekaury is listed here as a pagan black metal band, but I can't really hear a lot of paganism in the band's songs. Maybe the pagan aspect is all in the lyrics (that I can't understand), but as far as I am concerned this is a melodic black metal release. However, don't for a second think, before you've listened to this, that it's going to be some softer, watered-down black metal straddling close to the symphonic side of the genre. The guitars are heavy and fast, the drums absolutely brutal (and also somewhat repetitive) and the vocals are more akin to the growls of death metal than the grunts of old-school black metal. But it's all very cleverly and enjoyably interspersed with melodic riffing and even a few guitar solos. Spirit of Koguryo is a technical album that manages to feel both polished and raw.

At 33-ish minutes it is a bit on the shorter side for a full-length release, especially when considering some of this consists of localized recordings the band has thrown in here and there. However, these recordings (especially the last one, making up a significant portion of the outro) do add to the exotic feel of the album, and they're also the only things even remotely pagan on it. It doesn't feel too short though. It feels just as long as it needs to be, without becoming repetitive or boring either.

The final song sees Heukmae seemingly being possessed by a howling, hissing, menacing demon, and coupled with a melodic guitar line it all makes up a very enjoyable ending indeed. On the whole, this album is not perfect. The mid section of it is, at least in my opinion, repetitive and quite unimaginative. I also wouldn't have minded the bass being given some more room; There is almost a little too much high guitar riffing and soloing without the depth a bass provides. But these are the only flaws, and they're very minor indeed. It is an excellent example of how even more obscure countries (as far as metal goes) can put out very high quality material, and it's also one of the best one-man releases I've heard in quite some time. I definitely recommend Spirit of Koguryo to all fans of black metal, not just fans of the more melodic stuff of the genre.