The best sort of black metal artists are eternally asking questions which might direct, lead them along their dark spiritual inquests as their craft develops its knack for revealing breakthroughs of perspective and paradigm manifested through increasing singularity in rhythmic stance. Such is the practicum of Lappeenranta / Tampere, Finland-based quintet HORNA who’ve gone to the ends of the Earth in sourcing meaning and meaninglessness from various realms of death worship, pathos and primally stirred darkness over the last thirty years. With their eleventh full-length album the realm of the night, the drape of Nyx and the goddess-hand to be found in the mournful nightside are primary muse for the revelation to be gleaned from this quasi-concept album. ‘Nyx – Hymnejä Yölle‘ is in effect a corridor of melodious dread in bustling resound, a sojourn through mystic revelry and ancient inspiration which develops in depiction of classic romanticist poetry a beckoning call to the night as prime conduit to the realities of life and their muse upon death.

If you’re expecting a full discography retread for Horna we’ll have to settle for a shorter version today as I’d done a circuitous recap when reviewing their tenth LP, ‘Kuoleman Kirjo‘, back in 2020. That album had been of their best to date, a realization that’d hit as I began to generally form a sense of their greater purpose in Shatraug‘s hands. I’d described the record as: “[…] an unholy revelation that justifies this sense that Horna have outlasted others by virtue of remaining curious of the great beyond, unafraid to peer through any darkest doorway ahead.” suggesting that the intent was to not become repetitive in terms of style album-over-album and present something different with each release. We cannot prescribe canonical thought in terms of their discography aside from certain “eras” of the band having distinct figures in their line-up and with all of them presenting black metal, of course, their signature is nuanced and eclectic beyond much of the greater underground black metal reality.

While the previous album was largely centered on myriad 90’s black metal inspiration, as far as I’d gathered, this release is again not intent on iteration and instead presents something akin to a concept album which presents five pieces meant to be contiguous in their interpretation of Novalis’ (aka Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg’s) poem Hymnen an die Nactht (1797). This infamous poem of lament from first phase German Romanticism is an ode to a dead betrothed as much as it is a spiritual call, influential in its imagery for centuries thanks to heavy notes taken from Shakespeare and a few other key influences. From what I gather Shatraug wasn’t pleased with the Finnish translations of the poem and ultimately interpreted/translated it himself before applying those ideas to the lyrics of ‘Nyx – Hymnejä Yölle‘. This’d also necessitated six pieces per the six sections of the poem which were purportedly written for a couple of years prior to the material for ‘Kuoleman Kirijo‘ as they’ve cited this album as one of the longest considered and developed album from Horna to date. From my point of view this amount of context is perfect going in as I’ve not been great at gleaning any provenance from their past releases beyond certain records that’ve had a clear purpose, such as ‘Sotahuuto‘ (2007) being a clear tribute to Bathory.

In the same way you don’t necessarily need to know Finnish to grasp the tone of ‘Nyx – Hymnejä Yölle‘ you probably don’t need to be familiar with Hymnen an die Nacht and its own context but it will generally enrich in exponential layers if you’ve a grasp of each language, or, are able to understand the feeling set behind both works’ language used. There are two ways I could approach this in analyzing this record, the first is to feign the ignorance most will approach the album with and focus on the practical aspects of the music rather than the intended feeling put into it, and the second is to feel whatever the album inspires and contrast it with the ascribed tone of its inspiration. No one option is perfekt but all of this applied as I’d spent some extra time with this record, having enjoyed the momentum of its main component as well as the overall progression depicted song-over-song.

Long having a indisputable talent in presenting mind-shattering introductory pieces Horna opens “Hymni I” with escalating guitar runs cycling through conversational arcs, building the aforementioned pulverizing momentum through vocals shaken from the throat, rasped with vile charisma enough to charge the mind up to their harried energy. This must convey the mystic exasperation, a celestial call to the bereaved and the cosmic machine that’d willed away the object of their spiritual-emotional fixation. This piece makes for a grand introduction in the sense that we’re still witnessing the classic 90’s black metal foundations of the artist through careening tremolo-picked harm and dual-rhythmic statement, sophisticated but damaging guitar work which uses a serpentine sort of logic in crafting semi-melodic but devious phrases. There is no mistaking Horna in this moment and especially if you’d connected with ‘Kuoleman Kirijo‘ and its first half because the same virility and level of expression excites here up front as they likewise return with the same line-up. This is vital foundation as we walk-and-run through the dark-forested landscape of ‘Nyx – Hymnejä Yölle‘ where the suggested meta-momentum built establishes here.

“Hymni II” takes its time rebuilding similarly shaped melodic rhythms while tempering their emotional output toward stargazing sorrow. From my point of view the Sargeist fan within raises an eyebrow just slightly as the main chime of the song’s riffcraft develops its atmospheric breadth, also hearing a bit of an almost mid-90’s Bergen style of black metal swerve in these rhythms adjacent as the modulation of early Svensk melodicism inserts a few arcs into some of the verse riffing. In simpler terms, this song is deeply pensive and the frequent shifts in pacing build a sort of rocking turmoil as it proceeds into the second half. The final third of the song is most vital here as we stride along this path, wherein increasingly declarative vocals are met with distant chorales which frame the peak of the final arc with a haunted aura for a dramatic, impassioned but not at all interruptive. An increasingly melodramatic yet nonchalant feeling pervades as the album reaches its most profound dent upon the terrain.

With an average length of about ~6-8 minutes for these six songs the material on ‘Nyx – Hymnejä Yölle‘ is increasingly allowed more room to jam within, to breathe and haunt the space it inhabits with the reach of the rhythm guitar work leading the charge. The peak of this bounding expanse is “Hymni III”, a piece with a dare-I-say almost Uada-esque trot to its push which finds the guitarists working in sentimental rock guitar layers for an anthemic sound and run-on approach of its first half. The type of progressions they are working with here are dramatic yet introverted in scope, conveying a sensation of change, a loss of control and a passage which stampedes past before they lock into blasts and more damaging riffcraft beyond ~3:45 minutes or so; The level of focus created within those first three hymns is considerable as this realm of nightside grief and spiritual divination reveals with increasingly expressive intent. As a huge fan of melodic black metal this level of forward-pressed aggression and emotionally derailed tonality is particularly desirable without reading as cheaply melodramatic, there is yet a strong backbone attached to this work and there are bigger and heavier grooves ahead (see: “Hymni IV”) as Horna’s guitarists begin to round out the experience and match the pace/energy of the opening moments on “Hymni V”. Some of the most inventive dual rhythmic guitar work on the album happens here, a point of fire and flash which retains the sombre quality of the whole. Of course Spellgoth does fine work in every case but I’d especially appreciated the finesse applied to “Hymni V” where the expertise of the fellowe meets the moment in an exacting manner as the song peaks.

In terms of black metal those first five songs are the crux and the directive of this album applied as they blaze through each in a little over ~35 minutes and leave the remaining eight and a half minutes to a dark neofolk version of “Kuoleva Lupaus” from former bassist Hex Inferi (Kryptamok) who performs a new version of the piece first heard on their fourth LP (‘Envaatnags Eflos Solf Esgantaavne‘, 2005). An invitation to relish in the intimacy of the dark, to listen to the dead and warm to the idea of morbidity this song is well set within the theme of this record though its style is something unexpected from Horna (a good thing) but also goes on for a bit too long. At first I’d not had the patience to sit through this song, finding it unnecessary as an endpoint, but the tone fits in well enough with the full listen that leaving it to play during repeated full listens allowed it to make sense; Matching the dramatic spiritual tone of a late 18th century Romanticist poem with black metal is natural enough in its result, though I cannot comment on the actual lyrics of this album I assume they follow the general progression of the poem’s six pieces and instead of the ‘longing for death’ section we get “Kuoleva Lupaus” in an entirely new form.

It wouldn’t make sense to make the usual sort of statements about Horna which we’re used to applying to additive, iterative bands who’d polish the same idea for decades when they’re still intending to do something new with each album after thirty years. If anything they should be commended for still finding inspired things to do within the greater spheres of black metal and retaining any sense of self along the way. Is it their best yet? That might be the wrong question to ask at this point, most all of their work is above average and this one included. In terms of production values this one is pretty damned sharp sounding, though the “best” Horna record isn’t a consensus I’m interested in I would say I appreciate the level of focus applied to this work as it side-steps the usual “cumulative” milestone release for the sake of an album imbued with their strong character here and now instead. For my own taste this record holds deep meaning, embodies its source material from a personalized point of artistry, and once again finds a very high standard for black metal which speaks to the past, the present and whatever future exists. A very high recommendation.

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