Alkhemi - Häxen

 Alkhemi is a black metal band from France, who are releasing their second full-length album “Häxen.”  The album’s sound incorporates a lot of melodic and atmospheric elements but in a very smart way.  These elements expand the album into an epic sound that remains rooted in the cold, frightening side of black metal.  In essence, the melody/atmosphere highlights and exposes the raw nerves of the band’s sound without compromising an inch of what makes black metal so powerful and dangerous. 

There are a lot of layers to this darkness and I have found “Häxen,” to be an album that gets better and better every time I listen to it.  It isn’t necessarily a complicated or convoluted album, but it does have a lot of depth, so it is rife with wonderful discoveries, and each listen feels like a different journey. 

The production/mix is exactly how I like my black metal.  It has a raw feel to it without actually being raw but it's certainly dense and rough.  However, the mix doesn’t hide anything and every instrument shines through the layers, with even the bass getting plenty of time to show its masterful hand.  Black metal so often ignores the bass, but this band embraces it as much as they do anything–great decision.

The band knows just when to pour on the fury or when to back off and let some melody in or maybe a little groove here or there.  There isn’t one play style they stick to, nor do they try to cram in too much at once—every song has just what it needs, and everything is just as it should be. 

The opening is the belter “Zeitgeist,” and with a gripping blackened snarl, it all drops off a cliff full speed ahead towards the ground.  But it doesn’t hit the ground but instead soars with surprisingly catchy groovy blackened riffs.  A slight dose of melody goes a long way, as the mid portion of the song explores.  It’s beautiful in its own way and melds so goddamn well with the other instruments.  The last quarter of the song is a mid-paced tempo that brings out the best parts of the music before pouring on the aggression in the last minute. 

“Hissing Ratz,” opens with a straight up desolate riff that is bleak but heavy as the crushing weight of the ocean.  The guitar tone is straight fire–menacing, even scary.  As the guitars ebb and flow their dark magic, the drums are like meteor strikes as they hit with a precision that’s alarming.  Once again, the atmospheric melodies just fucking work for this band…blazing and emotional all in one fell swoop. 

“Stars and Frozen Faces,” begins with a sea of atmo elements that are cold and distant yet oddly inviting.  The slower pace of this song is magical, each element allowed to just sink into the void while pulling you behind it.  There is a layer of sorrow and longing on this track too, just enough to add a slightly different flavor to it.  The solo near the end of the song is adventurous and somber at the same time.

The final song, “Remnants,” is towering in the way the guitars present themselves and how the drums complement them.  This is one of the more straightforward songs on the album and that’s why it is a good one to end out—goes out with a bang but it still retains the mood of the prior songs. 

As of the time of this writing, Alkhemia’s “Häxen,” is one of my favorite black metal albums of the year so far because it effectively embraces different moods and sides to black metal while being engrossing and surprisingly catchy the entire time. 

Rating:  Excellent