HAR – Visitation (Mountainous Black Metal)

Man, I just did a site search, and apparently I have never reviewed an Israeli band. How is this possible? This is one of those random ones that came into the promo garbage pile in email, too, so I may not have noticed it at first if it wasn’t for the cover. I had never heard of HAR, and I never, repeat never, look up information on a band I know nothing about without experiencing their music first. That way I come into it without a single drop of subjectivity. The artwork I knew had to be by Karmazid, and I was right. I could only expect the best from there, so now I’m contradicting myself. So now I must scold the artwork very severely for giving me expectations in front of all my friends. You naughty, naughty art. Apologies for this ridiculous conversation, because Israel’s HAR kills so let me stop now.

  

Visitation is nearly a canon album for sure, it just barely misses the mark. Coming in at under 20 minutes, obviously an EP, but the amount of dark emotion they packed in it will surprise you. HAR, which made me at first want to pull out some pathetic joke like “hardy har har” because I’m a dumb American who only speaks English by God, but it’s actually the Anglicized form of the word “mountain” in Hebrew. Stupid Americans never understanding anything but English. I’m living proof, just look at that joke I dared write up there. Thankfully, we can move on, because these guys are living proof that naming a band after a land mass is possible. They’re probably the only band I’ve come across who deserves a mountain reference or three (tracks). Visitation is most certainly mountainous, the riffs (frostbitten snow) swirling around the crags (guitar/bass/drums), with the kind of echoing shrieking that is an easy pass for me. The writing goes from standard, the EP’s only fault, to a clever mosaic combining patterns in new ways as the vocals sweep around the valleys below. Just check out “Conjure the Black Flame” from about 2:15 on to get a feel. It pretty much says it all, but it’s far from a standalone track. At times extremely dense, at others a shrieking whirlwind, Visitation captures all of the most exemplary of black metal style, but yet, at times, it has something new to tear from its earthen bower.

 

HAR Official Facebook

Written by Stanley Stepanic

HAR – Visitation
Blood Harvest
4.4 / 5