Origin: Tarnów, Poland 🇵🇱
Genre: Black Metal
It’s the essence of the human condition, and in 2018, it manifested into human form as five harbingers of our future grim convened. And since, these fore-bearers of suffering have rendered unto us an EP and two LP’s – aggressive, misery-drenched black metal that scours, that scrapes and that digs into your innermost Hell – stirring up from deep psychological bogs the kind of concentrated dread that can only be endured by the experienced sufferer. On March 4, Poland’s Horda released “Form”.
A full lineup. It’s becoming a rarity these days for one to be utilized. The black metal scene has been, and currently is, dominated by soloists and duos. The records produced by these renegades vary in texture, but usually fall into the one or two dimensional categories. With Horda, the spreading of death is done the old way; in horde fashion. But with “Form”, the overall vibe is one of suspense and twisted psychological torment. It feels contemporary and not like something that would necessarily inspire one to venture out into the woods with sword in hand. There’s a fierceness to it; a violent tantrum level of aggression to be felt in tracks like “0-27” and “Ceremony”. Blast-beat powered one second and nightmarishly dreamlike the next. The rigid, Inertia-inducing nature of the recording gives way to more malleable compositions as “Exile” unfurls with UADA-like melodic passages; an unexpected transition from total sonic warmongering into soulful and even melancholy soundscapes.
It wouldn’t be a modern Polish black metal album without a little Mgła worship. The fog thickens during the final two cuts: “Worthless” and “Ścierwo Rodzaju”. Those deadly misanthropic vibes, those hypnotic tremolo melodies and all that horror resonating through every second of runtime during the record’s closing minutes. The despair and loathing of a thousand men to be felt here with nothing but the emptiness of the void to follow. On a musical level, not much in the way of bells and whistles yet still on its own plateau as far as energy and intensity. There’s an imposing blackened death-level of maliciousness to parts of the album that bring juggernauts like Behemoth and Belphegor to mind, but the band never stray off the true Polish black metal path.
As humans, we take many forms; so many in fact that most of us do not even remember the people we were a few years ago. We try to hide it, and when that doesn’t work, we attempt to augment ourselves and our realities in such a way as to deceive everyone. But in the end, our true form always shows; a contorted and grotesque statue of suffering that speaks to a lifetime’s worth of transgressions. Encapsulated in all of this is “Form” – a black metal album for today’s brand of misery.
8.5/10
Experience “Form” by Horda right here as presented by Black Metal Promotion:
