In October I was witnessing the final Lifelover show. They played under a different name because of the tragic death of their member Jonas Bergqvist. I don’t want to lose too many words about the show, but to be honest it wasn’t exactly the best show I’ve seen this year. But before the quasi-Lifelover entered the stage, another band played their very first show. I knew this band before from some obscure split record, its name: HERETOIR. They’ve just released their first, self titled record and definetely turned a lot of heads (including mine) in their direction. Epic, athmospheric, melodic and Shoegaze-infected Black Metal – count me in!
The musical relation to bands like Alceste, Amesoeurs or Lantlôs is undeniable. HERETOIR perfectly fit into that whole “Postrock meets Black Metal” thing, and they are doing it really good. Sure enough, if your ideal of Black Metal is, lets say Transilvanian Hunger, you might not enjoy HERETOIR. But if you could imagine listening to Transivilian Hunger and Loveless simultaneous, you gotta check out HERETOIR a.s.a.p.
The only point of criticism I really have is the production. Although it’s not exactly bad, it’s pretty weak and way too “thin”. Especially during blast beats, the sound gets quite undifferentiated and washy. I guess it’s not very far-fetched to say that HERETOIR aren’t even aiming for an extremely heavy sound, but on this record their neither sound heavy, nor cold. So that’s a point to improve but I’m pretty damn sure their next record is going to have the same (or even bettere) quality of song writing, will be packed in a comparable beautiful artwork and will come along with a better production. I can’t wait for that.
Existenz, singer and guitarist of HERETOIR
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