Heresiarh
Dragons of War
[Elven Witchcraft]


This "dragon metal" band from Latvia gives us an enchanting, magical work of creation as their first demo. Their songs are mid-paced, flowing narrative-structured metal songs with many lyrics actually written in the form of a bardic tale, which is not at all inappropriate. The sound is well-produced in a studio environment, each of the instruments clearly distinguishable, yet giving space for the emotional vocals to express and communicate their story. The lead is taken by the female vocalist Rasa (Ronja nowadays), who handles her high-pitched and trained-sounding voice skillfully during normal pace, but with the increasing tempo starts sounding more ecstatic and almost hysterical in a way reminding of upbeat dance-pop. Pop music elements can also be heard in the poignant keyboards, which emphasize major-key notes most of the time, never playing an individual melody that would be distinguishable from the dual-guitar riffing. Fortunately, the drug-induced keyboardist Morgueldar knows how to inspire visions of beauty and majesty with simple note combinations, that reach quite complex levels of (dis)sonance in the best songs of the demo. The brightness, lightness and happy elvishness of the constant stream of melody may sound escapist, careless and uninvolved to a grim listener and so, it is fortunate that this band has labeled themselves away from black metal, even if some of the darker, more sorrowful riffing and Morgueldar’s tortured, mostly uncontrolled vocal shrieks would give them aesthetical justification for it. The dark scream sounds out of place at times, as in the romantic "Lament of the Shield-Maid" and gives reason to suspect that this band has not yet reached a fully satisfactory conclusion concerning style. Out of the two sides of the demo, the side "Dragons" comes out as being the more powerful one, containing songs with more diversity in arrangement, like the evil "Wolfghosts" and the folkish "Aelfwine".

contact : Heresiarh website


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