Liste der Bands Avantgardiste Black Heretoir Heretoir

Heretoir is a German band riding the waves caused by bands such as Alcest, Amesoeurs and Lantlôs . This style aptly referred to as “blackgaze” mixes the rawness and intensity of black metal with influences from shoegaze and post rock. The juxtaposition between the cold aesthetics of black metal and the warmth of shoegazing and post rock admittedly work incredibly well together. Heretoir is another post rock/shoegazing/black metal band and although they don’t do anything out of the norm, Heretoir provides some emotional and atmospheric music.

Yet even with the familiarity of the style, Heretoir seem to focus on a much more black metal oriented sound than an artist like Alcest. The overall sound is rather rough and unpolished; the guitar tone is thin and sharp, often being buried underneath the drums and the vocals. When the guitar can be heard clearly, it plays droning yet ethereal melodies with influences from the depressive black metal world. The droning walls of sound created by the guitars work well when juxtaposed with post rock inspired leads and a warm shoegazing sound. The atmosphere comes across as suitably dreary yet mixed with a sense of hope and warmth. Some of the melodies in particular are quite joyous and beautiful, with Retreat to Hibernate being a particularly notable track. Purely instrumental, the post rock melodies work incredibly well in creating beautiful and ethereal atmospheres whilst the distorted guitars that prop up halfway through work nicely when mixed with the relaxing melodies.

However, despite Heretoir’s obvious skill in this sub genre, some sections of the music feel drawn out. Some ideas that Heretoir offer to the listener would work better when delivered in shorter, more powerful compositions. A lot of the album has been dedicated to instrumental sections, and yet despite being quite enjoyable have a tendency to run on for much more than needs be. Even the harsher, more metallic sections have a tendency to go on a bit of a tangent. There’s a fair amount of meandering about on this album, with the band not entirely show with what direction they want to go. To Follow the Sun is a good example of this awkward nature, some of the melodies have a depressive edge about them yet the vocals are delivered in an ethereal, and even incredibly beautiful clean voice that wouldn't be out of place on a Slowdive album. It’s an odd mixture and strangely it works quite well despite the seemingly incongruity of the style. However, despite this problem, To Follow the Sun is one of the best tracks of the album, creating a nice balance between smooth shoegazing vocals and depressive black metal leads. Unfortunately much of the album doesn't quite hold up to this track. Fatigue is quite a languid song which suffers from an identity crisis when the band seems to forget what genre they’re writing for. Many of the instrumental passages also suffer from smooth transitions between the harsher sections as the two conflicting styles need to have been worked on more for the transitions to be smoother. The album feels quite mechanical as a result. Whilst some of the music undoubtedly feels organic and natural, notable examples being Retreat to Hibernate, To Follow the Sun and Heretoir, much of the rest of the album is comprised of awkwardly conflicting elements. It’s quite weird really, the band is incredibly well at creating both shoegaze/post rock and black metal, yet when they attempt to blend them together the results are quite mixed. Of course, this isn't to say that the band is awful at this style, not at all. Merely more thought put into the compositions would go along way in enhancing the overall quality of the writing.

That being said, in general I do like it. I seriously feel that a greater understanding of how to properly synthesize these contrasting styles of would make it shine. In its present state it’s good, especially when the band shows more restraint and takes a more controlled effort. To Follow the Sun is undoubtedly the highlight of the album and shows the band in their purest, most fully realized state of being. None of the other tracks are particularly weak per se, but they’re not fantastic. Needs more work but otherwise pretty enjoyable.