Wildhoney
| Wildhoney | ||||
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| Studio album by Tiamat | ||||
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Publication |
September 1, 1994 |
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| Label (s) | Century Media | |||
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Title (number) |
10 |
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running time |
42 min 08 s |
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Studio (s) |
Woodhouse Studios, Hagen |
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Wildhoney is the fourth studio album by the Swedish gothic metal band Tiamat . It was released by Century Media on September 1, 1994 .
Emergence
Songwriting
Singer and guitarist Johan Edlund was dissatisfied with the result of the previous album Clouds . After the release of the EP The Sleeping Beauty (Live in Israel) , Edlund split from all of his bandmates with the exception of bassist Johnny Hagel. Johan Edlund wanted to break out of the "classic band constellation". Originally the band was supposed to be dissolved, but the owner of Tiamat's record label Robert Kampf campaigned heavily for the band to continue. Edlund and Hagel wrote the new music and, in addition to metal, were also heavily influenced by psychedelic and progressive rock bands such as Pink Floyd and King Crimson . Other influences were Dead Can Dance and Fields of the Nephilim . The first completed song was Visionaire , in whose creation the former guitarist Thomas Petterson was also involved. According to Johnny Hagel, the song set the musical direction for the other tracks.
A short time later Edlund and Hagel recorded a purely instrumental demo . Then the producer Waldemar Sorychta traveled to Sweden and helped the two musicians to further arrange the material. Some songs initially only consisted of three bass notes . According to Sorychta, most of the songs sounded similar to the ballad-like A Pocket Size Sun and he had to urge the musicians to mix their music with metal. Most of the songs were finished before the studio appointment. Only A Pocket Size Sun existed as a sketch before the recordings and was only completed in the studio. The intro Wildhoney was much longer in its original form. According to Johan Edlund, Tiamat had received complete artistic freedom from their record company.
Recordings
The recordings took place in July 1994 in the Woodhouse Studios in Hagen . According to Johan Edlund, the band received a "relatively substantial studio budget" from their record label. Before the studio appointment, the musicians had deliberately not finished the new material in order to be able to experiment as much as possible. Edlund stated in an interview that the musicians themselves didn't know what the album would sound like before the recordings.
Produced and mixed was Wild Honey by Waldemar Sorychta. Guitarist Magnus Sahlgren and drummer Lars Sköld participated as studio musicians . Both musicians later became permanent members of the band, although Sahlgren was to quit after a short time. Waldemar Sorychta recorded all keyboards . Curiously, Tiamat had already hired a musician for the keyboard, but the musicians decided at short notice to give the producer the job. Birgit Zacher can be heard as a guest singer. The mastering was done by Klaus "DMS" Pauliks.
publication
The album cover was drawn by Kristian Wåhlin . For the songs Whatever did Hurts and Gaia were music videos rotated. Wildhoney has been released on CD , LP and cassette . In addition, a limited box was released that contained a jar with real honey in addition to the CD version . According to Discogs , there would be 50 different versions of the album, but also many unofficial ones from Eastern Europe .
background
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All texts are from Edlund |
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In Whatever that Hurts , Johan Edlund processes his experiences with hallucinogenic drugs . In the text, the common thorn apple ( called Jimsonweed in the lyrics , one of the English common names of the plant) and the mushroom genus Psilocybe are mentioned. The final song, A Pocket Size Sun , is also about drugs and the lyrics are about LSD . The song The Ar refers to the pentagram as a sign that represents man . The title is a short form of "The sign of the Aryan race ".
“It's the old name for the pentagram as a symbol for man, and for me it represents both the good and the bad in everyone. [...] It has nothing to do with politics and fascism , but relates to something that is 5,000 years old. "
Gaia is earth personified in Greek mythology . Edlund wrote with Gaia for the first time a socially critical text in which he z. B. Animal testing and the deforestation of the rainforests criticized. Visionaire deals with the topic of Satanism , while Edlund dedicated Do You Dream of Me to his girlfriend at the time. He also revealed his vulnerability in this song.
Each of the ten titles is represented by a picture in the booklet. In the run-up to the publication, Edlund traveled to a friend in Gothenburg to find suitable motifs. The ten tracks on the album merge directly into one another. The only interruption takes place between the songs Gaia and Visionaire in order to be able to change sides with the cassette or LP version.
reception
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Reviews
The German magazine Metal Hammer named Wildhoney “Album of the Month”. Robert Müller described the album as a “total work of art”, which “takes over mood and feelings and makes music underneath”. Wildhoney is an album that "envelops the listener like a warm coat and whispers into dreams". Müller awarded the top grade of seven points and wrote that he had never meant the top grade more seriously than this time. Jan Müller from the online magazine Metal1.info described the album as a work that should not be missing in any metal collection. Only the fact that the album only consists of seven songs and a few instrumental interludes prevented the top grade, which is why Müller awarded 9.5 out of ten points. According to Peter Kubaschk from the online magazine Powermetal.de , Tiamat “managed the perfect balancing act between high artistic standards, a warm atmosphere, goose bumps and fragile gloom in 42 minutes”.
Charts and awards
Wildhoney reached number 29 in the German album charts . For the band it was the first ever chart placement. In Germany alone, over 100,000 copies of the album were sold within a year of its release. In 1995 Wildhoney was nominated for the Swedish Grammis music award in the hard rock category, but the award went to the band Mary Beats Jane .
meaning
The album Wildhoney is considered a genre classic. Eduardo Rivadavia from the online magazine Allmusic described Wildhoney as "groundbreaking". The album lifted the band's "combination of lagging death metal roots and atmospheric soundscapes to unprecedented heights of innovation." For Robert Müller from the German magazine Metal Hammer, Wildhoney is “perhaps the brightest example of the“ everything goes ”idea of the nineties”. The music would have "aged surprisingly well and has not lost a touch of its magic to this day". Fernando Ribeiro of the band Moonspell described Wildhoney as "forever the undisputed leader of all progressive metal albums because of the sheer amount of timeless, uncompromising music". Frank Albrecht from the German magazine Deaf Forever noted in his article on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the publication that Tiamat with Wildhoney also reached numerous listeners who would otherwise not listen to metal or rock.
In the book Best of Rock & Metal by the German magazine Rock Hard , which lists the 500 strongest metal and hard rock albums of all time, according to the Rock-Hard editorial team , Wildhoney was ranked 208. Wolfgang Schäfer referred to Wildhoney as a "pioneering album that is an important pillar in terms of determining the position not only of the band, but also of an entire scene". The German magazine Visions led Wildhoney on their list of the 55 best Swedish rock albums published in 2019. The US American magazine Decibel accepted Wildhoney in 2015 in its "Hall of Fame".
Individual evidence
- ^ Daniel Ekeroth: Swedish Death Metal . Bazillion Points Books, ISBN 0-9796163-1-X , pp. 212 .
- ↑ a b c d e f Frank Albrecht: Right time, right place . In: Deaf Forever , July / August 2019, page 117
- ↑ a b c d Frank Albrecht: Acoustic brainwashing . In: Rock Hard , October 1994, p.12.
- ↑ Andreas Schulz: Wildhoney - the different versions . In: Deaf Forever, July / August 2019, page 115
- ↑ a b Robert Müller: Tiamat . Feelings are the world, symbols are its language. In: Metal Hammer . No. 11 . ZAG Zeitschriften-Verlag, Zug November 1994, p. 118 .
- ^ Tiamat - Wildhoney. GfK Entertainment , accessed on June 13, 2019 .
- ^ Robert Müller: Tiamat . Wildhoney. In: Metal Hammer . No. 10 . ZAG Zeitschriften-Verlag, Zug October 1994, p. 47 .
- ↑ Jan Müller: Tiamat - Wildhoney. Metal1.info, accessed June 14, 2019 .
- ^ Peter Kubaschk: Tiamat / Wildhoney. Powermetal.de , accessed on June 14, 2019 .
- ^ Frank Albrecht: 25 years of Wildhoney . In: Deaf Forever, July / August 2019, page 115
- ↑ 1995 Grammisgalan. Grammis, accessed June 14, 2019 (Swedish).
- ↑ Rock Hard (Ed.): Best of Rock & Metal - The 500 strongest discs of all time . Heel Verlag , Königswinter 2005, ISBN 3-89880-517-4 , p. 135 .
- ↑ various authors: export world champion . In: Visions , issue 312, page 50
- ↑ Chris Dick: Tiamat - Wildhoney. Decibel , accessed June 14, 2019 .