Artist: Hemlokk & Hyrde
Title: Feohland
Type: Collaboration Album
Label: Digital / House Of Inkantation
Now I was really anticipating this one. If you don’t know the names, Hemlokk is an atmospheric black metal and neofolk project by one Æthelheid (also a fine artist at Thaumaturge Artworks) and Hyrde is Osbryht, also of Vassus and Barrow Lord. So you have a lot of talent to draw on here without doubt, but also correspondingly high expectations.
‘Golden Sun In the West’ is really just the perfect scene setter. It’s a sunlit clear folk melody, almost jaunty in spirit and sound without crossing the threshold into some forced jig. There is beautiful guitar picking, other instruments I will not attempt to name and some lovely clean and half spoken voices. It is that sound that is so ‘simple’ and yet to present it with such real passion and respect for the past and how people might have felt is quite stunning and complex. ‘Over High Hills & Dale’ has a more neofolk flavour perhaps, the vocals combined bringing together a scene of common folk and fighters and the feel of the journey, a march to battle but surrounded by the land and its natural beauty. Something worth fighting for…. and battle commences
‘Wealden Warrior’ is a burst of anglo-saxon metal. The vocals harsh, the drumming relentless and a riff with its pace and variation and huge melodic hook reminiscent of Forefather perhaps, that level of story weaving and blood telling in its spirit and sound. ‘Feohland’ has a softer sound to it, the riff dancing along a melodic lilt, the harsh vocals quieter, lower in the mix but the sound somehow both epic, opening up visions of the land, without losing sight of the delicate details; leaves on trees perhaps, the sound of people working. A place, a time.
Four songs in and I am completely enthralled. I want to use the word ‘magical’ but that would be so wrong. This has a vibrancy that seems to grow from the roots of history not so much imagaination. It is a translation across the centuries for certain, but there is an honesty and an open heart that for me is no less authentic than say Heilung or Wardruna.
And then in dances ‘Ćīeġaþ Camprǣden’; an almost riotous blast of surprisingly punked up black metal and fast vocals. I have no idea what it says but something about this just makes you feel alive. ‘Built By The Hundreds’ slows things a touch, the sound growing a little more reflective, sombre maybe? But again the songwriting, the tune just ensnares you. We get clean vocals too, a rich sound. The building of a home perhaps, a wild land, harsh seasons but their own. I am simply saying what it stirs in me. A sense of honouring the past and those who came before.
‘Hereæs ond Irre’ and ‘Barrow Down’ continue the history we walk through. ‘These Lands We Call Home’ drawing it together; a place where life is a struggle and change is always present. And yet it is still home. It may be assailed by progress, trees felled, but you can still hear it if you wish to.
A beautiful, thoughtful ‘Gildagrēne’ takes us by the hand to ‘The End Of Summer Days’. The end of days of growth and hopefully abundance. The settling in of the darker days, the colder nights. A cycle known so well to the people living upon the land, working it for their families, their community. Bittersweet, gentle of motion, it is just the sound of your heart as the seasons turn.
We are left with ‘Oak, Ash and Thorn’. I can only urge you to read the lyrics here. This soft song, a pean to the trees of this land that have shaped every part of our lives is humbling. For all our mighty buildings, our tools, our possession, how many back to their root must lay their thanks and prayers to these.
And the silence as it fades is so loud. It is the thoughts that this breathtaking album has left behind. I look out of my home towards the old wooded hills I am fortunate to live close to and I can hear the voices talking to me once more.
Folk, pagan metal, neofolk; all woven together with deep, deep passion and love. This is truly both remarkable and I suspect enduring music. It will not easily be shaken loose from your heart with the living world about you to call it back every time you walk down quiet lanes or up windswept hills.
I cannot recommend this highly enough. The best album the year has yet offered to me. Please, listen to this and if you can buy this.
Gizmo
Walking The Liminal Space 