I know that a new opus has been finished in the meantime (the compilation Forlorn), yet I sort of promised to write a review on the last ‘full’ recording, released at the very beginning of this year, called Kuumet. In Finnish Folklore,'kuumet' is the name for creatures that were believed to cause lunar eclipse.
Anyway… Horre is the main / sole (?) outfit of Finnish multi-instrumentalist Jesse Laatikainen, who sort of started this act in the second half of last decade under the name of Minor. After a small break, Jesse returned as Horre, with a modestly productive activity. As far as I know, the guy behind Horre did everything himself: song-writing + lyrics, recording, production and independent release. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole artwork / layout thing was courtesy of Jesse as well.
Kuumet is a seven-tracker (the Bandcamp-page offers six tracks, apparently), available via digital sources only, at this very moment (I hope a physical edition will follow in some future!), i.e. via the project’s Bandcamp-page and some other sources. It consists of down-tuned yet hymnic pieces that clock in between five and twelve minutes each, with the result having a total running time of over fifty-six minutes. And despite the Suomi-based origins, the texts are in English. However, you better read them, for the deeply-growling voices (and some additional blackened outbursts) are not exactly that well comprehensible. No, it has nothing to do with some bad pronunciation or so; it’s that typifying abyssal-tuned and ultra-slow vocal timbre that makes it quite a challenge to ‘follow’ the poetic side. These lyrics deal with nature, paganism and history (dixit the bio) and are as modest and minimalistic as they are in-depth and intriguing. I think that subjects like melancholia, death, abandonment, solitude, visions of the night and loss are at least as thematically involved.
The opening composition is a great example of what this act stands for. Evening Star starts with a captivating melody, slow, haunting, ominous and dreamlike; intense, oppressive and severe too. Quite soon, those layers of string-harmony get joined by more guitars, pounding drum-work and the ultimately deep growls by Jesse. This is the kind of Funeral Doom that sticks to the essence; no gimmicks or experiments, no complexity or progression; just the bare, purest essence of in-depth funereal Aural Art. Long-stretched Ambient-laden synths join, completing the raven-black atmosphere. Further, there are some spoken words too, strengthening the bleak messages, as well as some ‘necessary’ acoustic intermezzi and fine-tuned soloing. As a whole, Evening Star – and this actually goes for all elegies on this album – brings forth the finest definition of Funeral Doom Elegance; the lack of ‘originality’ does not matter, for the result is oh so munificent and delicate.
This mostly attractive form of Sonic Obscurity goes for the whole of the album. Kuumet never disappoints, despite the ‘traditional’ song-writing and execution. The whole is veiled in a bleak, blackened nebula, procreating visions of nightly graveyard mist and long forgotten abandoned ruins in a modestly moonlit forest setting. Yes, it makes me imaginate and fantasize of vanity’s fairness.
Despite the lengthy duration of (almost) each piece on this album, and the total length of the whole album, every Funeral Doom purist / amateur will recognize and accept the honesty and gracefulness that characterises Kuumet. Every composition might come with comparable ingredients – the variety in structure and tempo [going from extremely slow towards even slower], the injection of acoustic passages and the well-balanced use of keyboards, additional vocal timbres [oppressive blackish cries with a ‘distant’ timbre, warm choir-like chants, spoken words] etc. – yet that’s exactly how the nucleus of this specific stylistic approach must sound like. It always did, and so it must be. Even the sound-quality totally fits to the heart, to the core, to the spine, of this material: being very decent in tone and with a refined equilibrium in between all instrumental and vocal elements, yet also conserving that fair and droning roughness and perfected impurity in production.
PS: I do have an additional seventh track, Blessed Is Only He Who Dies, which slightly differs on a few aspects. It sufficiently approaches a ‘Traditional Doom’ attitude, with hypnotic bass-lines and guitar harmonies and with clean voices / choir-chants, while the lyrics refer to religion / belief rather than despair, grief or mankind’s relation to Mother Nature. Yet at the very same time, there is an evident equation in atmosphere and sound.
As mentioned before, this album won’t be a recommendation in case you’re looking for some adventurous, progressive or renewing effort. Horre did not create Kuumet with the intention to excogitate something novel or refreshing. Then again, this sensitive masterwork exhales an exquisite craftsmanship and a proficient elegancy. Therefor every spirit that might adore darkened Sonic Supremacy will venerate this audible monument…
https://horre.bandcamp.com/album/kuumet