Band: Harmdaud
Title: Skärvor
Genre: Melodic Black Metal
Time: 47.00 min
Release Date: 22nd February 2019
Rating: 84/100
In the meantime that I'm waiting for other interesting promo kits from
Art Gates Records, this review is about an album that this Spanish label sent me some months ago. The title of this album is "
Skärvor" and the band is called
Harmdaud. For the truth, we are talking about a Swedish one-man band guided by
Andreas Stenlund that, with "Skärvor", published his second album under the moniker of Harmdaud, a word in Swedish language that stands, in according to an interview I read, for "death of sorrow" or for "death by sorrow". And now let me say that we are in presence of a
very good black metal album!
Melodic,
epic,
atmospheric and
melancholic: these are the adjectives that I can use to describe the Harmdaud's black metal throughout the 8 songs of "
Skärvor". In practice, it's a style that reminds me a lot of bands like
Emperor and
Dissection and is exemplified at its best by songs such as "
Stöpt", "
Bränt till grund", "
Natten oss genomströmmar" and the epic 7-minute opus "
Sprickorna i verkligheten". In particular, "Bränt till grund" and "Sprickorna i verkligheten" contains singalong vocal lines also thanks to the participation of nothing else than
Vintersorg, very effective with his
Quortonesque clean vocals and even with his keyboards, that are present throughout the album. In addition, "Sprickorna..." is my
favorite song because, into it, there are all the main features of the Harmdaud's sound so to range from
icy and blasting outbursts to
melancholic passages as well
some acoustic parts. From time to time, there are clear
thrash metal influences (like in "
Koloss"), that are obvious since Andreas plays also in a death/thrash metal band known as
TME. In all this, the only relative flaw comes from the fact that Andreas uses a
drum-machine instead of real drums (that I tend to prefer), even though I have to admit that he programmed it in a good way.
Okay, this second Harmdaud's album produced by Vintersorg
amazed me very well through a combination of
aggression (but never reaching the pure violence),
suggestive melodies,
epicness and a
good amount of atmosphere that's also able to seriously move the listeners in an
emotive way. The only shame is the
drum-machine since the real drums could give more deepness to the music but this is a very personal consideration of mine that doesn't ruin the value of this album. So, if you like melodic black metal
as it should be, then buy "
Skärvor". Especially now that, from 1st to 8th June 2019, there is a
50% discount on all the stuff in the
Bandcamp page of Harmdaud!
Tracklist:
1 - Kraft
2 - Stöpt
3 - Bränt till grund
4 - Skärvor
5 - Koloss
6 - Natten oss genomströmmar
7 - Sprickorna i verkligheten
8 - Näven kring min hals
Line-up:
Andreas Stenlund - vocals/guitars/bass/drum-machine/synths
Guest:
Vintersorg - clean vocals (3, 7), keyboards
FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/Harmdaud/
Bandcamp: https://harmdaud.bandcamp.com/releases
Art Gates Records: http://www.artgatesrecords.com/
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