Already the only member of MYSTAGOS, Heolstor returns with his other band, AT THE ALTAR OF THE HORNED GOD, an atypical and original project in which the Spanish musician has successfully harnessed the ritual metal of URFAUST and the Pan-centric black metal of ARCKANUM in a unique and unmistakable style. Rich in psychedelic and dark ambient/folk echoes in the manner of DEAD CAN DANCE, the music of “Heart Of Silence” continues in the atmospheric groove traced by the previous work (“Through Doors Of Moonlight”, 2020), but with greater emphasis on the black metal component and dark melodies that wrap the songs in a cosmic shroud of stars.
Those of Heolstor are pagan hymns to the night and its silent ghosts, guardians who inhabit it and who dwell in the reflections of the moon, in the wind that shakes the trees of the wood, in the snakes that slither among their roots in the dark. It is the night of the human soul, alone and naked in front of a Nature that embraces us like a mother, now benevolent, now severe.
In “Heart Of Silence” AT THE ALTAR OF THE HORNED GOD prove to be at ease both when they try their hand at the ferocious black metal of the origins, and when their music takes on more ritualistic and meditative contours, thanks to the copious use of percussive instruments used to punctuate a deliberately primitive writing, always deeply hypnotic and with a religious character.
And the Horned One, who lives in memories of a time when the world was new and man free, smiles in pleasure.
