Bornholm - Inexorable Defiance

Bornholm

Inexorable Defiance

by Lior "Steinmetal" Stein at 24 January 2013, 3:28 PM

When facing a tyrant or an imminent threat that might endanger life as one knows it, it would take courage, and the right attitude along with it to conquer that peril. However, facing your own abilities is something entirely different. Waging an inside war is one of the toughest struggles any normal human being can endure. I believe that I just talked about myself. As everyone else I have my own contemplations regarding matters. Sometimes those would make me crazy, like an itch that I really don’t want to scratch. Yet, when I have to make a decision regarding an album that I have just finished listening to, often it is a messy occurrence. So here I was introduced to the Hungarian BORNHOLM, a sort of Symphonic Black / Pagan / Folk Metal band that seemed to crave to fight the good fight through heathen like themes, conveying hidden messages that would take some time to decipher. Not that it bothered me as it got me interested even more. Rather newly signed to NoiseArt Records, the band released its third album, “Inexorable Defiance”, being persistent on playing their way with several attempts to raise the bar of their efforts. That last sentence was the basis for my endless contemplations that gave me a headache, but in the end I reached a decision.

For me “Inexorable Defiance” is like a stray bullet that would be a guaranteed miss from the barrel of a gun of one great sharpshooter, or in order to get into the spirit of legends, a missed yielded axe out of the hands of the perfect axeman. Without I doubt I listened to a band with lots of talent that based an inspiring foundation on playing utterly harmonic Black Metal following contemporary and old school cunnings. More or less the songs, even for the genre, were kind of flowing. Not that I expected them to be as on every Pagan / Black Metal band out there. I could sense the passion within the riffing, especially on those displaying melodies that aren’t just your average melodic trills shooting away at every corner. Moreover, before entering the centrepiece of attention, BORNHOLM entered the land of forlorn with what I asserted as a grandiloquent intro that opened my eyes to the possibility that might have struck gold. Since that wasn’t the story, I still headed forward sinking in deep. “Walk OnPagan Ways”actually lifted my hopes up with incredible riffing, wonderful work on the synth or keys out back. The atmosphere conveyed by the scenery BORNHOLM made was breath taking. Generally, the song pretty much reprocessed itself but at least it was enjoyable. Right after I started walking the Pagan ways, everything crumbled upon my face sending me to doze off with repeated and uninteresting arrangements that I just couldn’t believe. Not so agonizing, because BORNHOLM kept the fine line of melodies, but the slow tempo tracks were a thing of the world of endless sleep. Only after the final shot of the outro “Towards The Golden Halls”, I saw the true horrid image of BORNHOLM with “Feast The Fire”, a tremendous fast paced track, a true Black Metal mastery, plain, melodic and straight to the point, there viciousness is their virtue.

At first it was rather hard for me to decide whether to accommodate this release or not. I think that my rating is just as I do have faith in this band for a better productivity in their next release. From the get go it seemed like everything is clicking, I like the production that provided the album a sort of a Norwegian imagery, and the first songs were quite good, but the latter up to a song that was never a part of the tracklist that I know of, wasn’t that comforting. Therefore, I suggest on taking on this release to experience its manifest, but in general, could be way better.