Bolzer - Hero

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Black Metal still has some secrets inside its dark and deep depths. Since the coming of those bands from Norway, Greece and Sweden on the beginning of the 90s, from time to time, good bands arose from underground showing a very good musical work, being different from the others. The Swiss duo BÖLZER is here to show what they got with their first album, called “Hero”, after one Demo and 2 EPs.

Heirs to a line of great names on Metal as HELLHAMMER, CELTIC FROST and CORONER, their main style can be said as that somber and morbid form of playing Black Metal, but in an introspective and aggressive way, like the band could fuse Black Metal with some aspects of Doom Death Metal and Funeral Doom Metal, so their tempos are, in the greater part of the songs, in a slow way. But the band is creative, even using a not extreme technical complexity on their songs. The energy flowing from their songs is really very good as well.

The sound quality is good enough for us to understand what they are playing. It’s a good work from V. Santura and Arioch (both did the mixing and mastering of the album). It’s essentially a Black Metal sound quality, so it’s raw and dirty in the essential way, without excesses that would damage their work. Just some instrumental tunes could be done in a better way. The album has seven songs (because “Urdr” and “Decima” are atmospheric introductions), and their best moments are the aggressive and thunderous “The Archer” (showing a very good work from bass guitar and drums), the slow and climatic “Hero” (with a very good use of many vocal tunes, from agonizing voices to whispers), the darkened and morbid “I Am III” (very good slow tempos, showing good changes in rhythm when its necessary), and the melodic aesthetic sense that permeates the atmospheric “Chlorophyllia”. These guys have guts, their musical potential is immense and their future seems to be great. But even now, “Hero” is a very good release, indeed.

Originality: 7
Songwriting: 9
Memorability: 8
Production: 8