Headcult
| Headcult | ||||
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| Studio album by Morrigan | ||||
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Publication |
2005 |
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| Label (s) | Undercover Records | |||
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Format (s) |
CD, LP |
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Title (number) |
9 |
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running time |
1 h 1 m 49 s |
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| occupation |
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Studio (s) |
Halls of Manannan |
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Headcult is the fourth album by the German pagan metal band Morrigan . It was released by Undercover Records in 2005. The cover is by Beliar, the rest of the design by KD by the Greek band Nocternity , who previously shared a split EP with Morrigan. The title of the album refers to the Celtic head cult .
Track list
- Morrigan's Flight over Celtic Lands - 4:08
- Crom Cruach - 10:00
- Where Rainbows End - 6:41
- Bloody Blue Faces - 5:33
- They Can't Tame the Devil - 4:45
- Headcult - 8:12
- Tailisain - 7:45
- Beyond the Convent - 6:44
- Spell of the Mountain King - 8:01 am
Music genre
The style of music is still inspired by Bathory and takes over “all trademarks of Sweden from his Viking times”, combined with a reverberated, grieghalle-like production. Compared to the previous albums , Heacult dispenses with faster songs in favor of more epic compositions and contains “less random bludgeons [...]. Rather, everything that has been performed so far has been refined and perfected. ”While up until then“ the constant change between epic and aggression ”was typical for the band, Headcult is “ the band's first completely epic album ”. Robin from Archaic-Magazine.com compared the album with the more recent works by Graveland , but in an interview with him Balor denied any Graveland influences on Morrigan. The Celtic Winter was "a great release", the rest was not his "cup of tea".
The album begins with the approximately four-minute intro Morrigan's Flight over Celtic Lands , which consists of flutes and ambient instrumentation as well as raven shouts, a kind of choir, sword blades and other fighting noises, thus depicting a battle scene.
The actual songs all have different structures, mostly based on riffs similar to those in Thrash Metal . The atmosphere of the album has been described as "quite engaging, epic, yet always cold and extremely calm". The drumming is varied, the singing is performed both gutturally and clearly; the song Crom Cruach, for example, “lives through constantly recurring, towering archaic choirs that continue to fade away in mighty screams”. The songs "establish a connection with one another"; Headcult is a kind of concept album, according to Balor.
In addition to Bathory, the English band Magnum also served as inspiration: Bloody Blue Faces begins with the first riff from Magnum's Kingdom of Madness .
Reviews
Robin from Archaic-Magazine.com praises the clear vocals, which, unlike many other publications, don't sound out of place. He recommends Headcult to everyone who likes Bathory and Graveland, clear vocals, long tracks, intros and variety. Markus Eck from Metalmessage described the album as, in his opinion, “the best work by Morrigan so far. Picturesque Nordic epics and an insatiable longing for ancient times give themselves a noble rendezvous with good old atmospheric Bathory soundscapes such as those offered by ' Hammerheart ' or ' Twilight Of The Gods '. "The songs are, however," far too independent and artistically rich “To be a Bathory plagiarism. Karsten Heim from metalnews, on the other hand, describes the first hearing impression as “a rather disappointing experience”, as “many of the pieces on it do not exceed the quality of the epic hymns from earlier days”. In addition, the album "unfortunately has no real climax". Also, "sound errors, such as the tin drum-like striking mechanism, as well as the indifferent overall sound cannot be overheard". After listening to it several times, he found the "dull sounding guitars [...] now very suitable because they give the music a lot of barbaric, stoic power". In the meantime he "see and FEEL" "the true splendor of this gem of Celtic art of music". It doesn’t offer everything that he hoped for, but it is “definitely great art”. Lady Obscura from schwermetall.ch thinks Beliar's croaking vocals “takes some getting used to”, his clear vocals are better and “come across as very powerful”. At first she found the album “just plain boring” and rarely found access to an album as difficult as with Headcult . The sole influence of Bathory chanted by the band is clearly reflected in the music; it does not come close to the original, but it is "for Bathory fans [...] in any case an obligation to listen to" Headcult "once". Hawk from The Metal Observer described the Magnum riff as "[s] chön stolen" and made a recommendation for the album.
Fenriz von Darkthrone described Headcult as the “perfection” of the style initiated by Quorthon , which was “[far] better than Folk Metal ”; the album sounds "as if it could have appeared between 'Hammerheart' and 'Twilight of the Gods'". Michael Meyer from Bloodchamber.de describes it as "the best Bathory album in over a decade" after Destroyer of Worlds was "shitty" and Nordland I and Nordland II were just average. He called "the names of political dyslexics like Absurd and Totenburg " as "shit" due to the quality of the music, but announced an interview "in which the relationship to the above-mentioned NSBM bands should also be discussed". In retrospect, however, the editors of Bloodchamber.de "[a] owing to the not always very clear circumstances at the time of publication of this text or through the statements, actions and relationships of the musicians concerned [...] that were not known until later [...] expressly distanced themselves from any National Socialist way of thinking or." Propaganda".
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Michael Meyer: Morrigan - From Celtic customs .
- ↑ a b c d Michael Meyer: Morrigan - Headcult .
- ↑ a b Steffi: Morrigan (Germany) "Headcult" CD .
- ↑ a b c Karsten Heim: CD REVIEW: Morrigan - Headcult .
- ↑ a b Headcult :: Morrigan ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .
- ↑ a b Robin: One Should Use a Hardcore Band to Express Politics Through! ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .
- ^ A b Lady Oscura: Morrigan - Headcult (2005) .
- ↑ a b Hawk: Review - MORRIGAN - Headcult .
- ↑ Markus Eck: Morrigan . Headstrong individualists .
- ↑ dirk-bengt: Darkthrone - Interview with the metal missionary, drummer and non-musician Fenriz .
- ↑ Michael Meyer: Morrigan - Weltcome To Samhain .
