One week from today the German pagan black metal band Horn will release Verzet, its ninth album in a musical career that now spans nearly two decades. As ever, Verzet is the vision and solo work of Niklas, aided by a few talented guest performers.

The album’s name is Dutch for “resistance”, and three of the tracks (“Galgenblech”, “Aufstand”, and “Verzet”) deal with the topic of rebellion, while others concern the importance of perseverance and principles (“A Hill To Die On”) and the concept of agency and the lack thereof (“Protektor”). But the song that Horn chose as the lead “single”, which was accompanied by a beautiful video, was “Alpenrekorder”, and it manifested a reawakening of the classic Horn style, with its roots in folkloric traditions and a reverence for nature. Continue reading »

Over the extravagant span of eight albums, the most recent of which we’re streaming in full today, the German band Horn has marched forward on an increasingly distinctive path, diverging from where it began and now blazing a trail of its own through the tangled forests of black metal and entering a clearing in which Horn stands alone. That may sound like an overstatement, but the new album, Mohngang, is a stunning accomplishment that in all its variations and in the richness of its musical textures really is difficult to classify as standing shoulder-to-shoulder with many (or maybe any) other bands.

We’ll provide some further thoughts (and feeble attempts at descriptive verbiage), just to give you some clues as to whether Mohngang is going to strike a chord with you, but there will be no adequate substitute for simply listening to it now, just days before its release by Iron Bonehead Productions on May 15th. Continue reading »

Turm am Hang is the new album by Germany’s Horn and it’s a unique experience. “Unique” is an overused and misused word, but here it’s not hyperbole. The album is so distinctive that it defies comparisons — as you’re about to discover for yourselves, because we’re presenting the premiere of a full album stream in advance of the record’s release on January 27.

The work of Horn’s lone creator Nerrath, Turm am Hang is Horn’s seventh album and, among the ones I’ve heard, the most successful. It was inspired by a variety of historical subjects, as well as by an appreciation for ancient valor and an animating spirit of tribalism. Continue reading »