Helrunar
Sól

March 2011
Released: 2011, Lupus Lounge/Prophecy Productions
Rating: 3.5/5
Reviewer: Metal-Rules.com UK Team

This is the third album release from the German Pagan Black Metal band ‘Helrunar’ in three years, releasing ‘Sól’ on a two disc album.



Starting with a slow talkative intro ‘Gefrierpunkt’, setting the dark scene before the second track ‘Kollapsar’ kicks in with impressive fast beat dreaming and black metal growls. The album takes a slower turn, with a darker feel to it, but it’s not long until the album picks up again with faster riffs giving the songs a nice balance. There are some amazing guitar solo’s and ‘Praeludium Eclipsis’ is a fantastic instrumental track, giving the album a more doom metal feeling, before ‘Nur Fragmente’ brings it the faster black metal pace. I loved ‘Skald Draugir’ vocals throughout the album although some of the clean speaking (in German) did become slighting annoying. But I loved the intensity of his darker metal vocals. With no keyboards or orchestra involved unlike some other popular black metal bands use, this is very much old school black metal, but they aren’t missed as the tracks are amazing and very versatile in their sound.



You can hear the versatility of this band in some of their longer tracks that are 8-10 minutes long, with their black and dark doom metal sounds which continually held my attention. This for me is their best album to date and definitely an album black metal fans need to check out!



Jo Blackened