The Black Hours Review

The Black Hours is the newest release by trashed-out and blacked-out metal band, Katahdin, slaying from the western parts of thrashed-out and blacked-out New England. And this time, they brought some friends along for the ride!

Katahdin & In Human Form & Aoi - The Black Hours (2011)

Along with Katahdin on this "cohesive onslaught" (I like that a lot) is the choir metal/medieval folk rock act, Aoi from Brooklyn (no less) and Progressive black metal band from Massachusetts, In Human Form.

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This three way dance comes with a lot of unique looks into the depths of where metal has gone, can go and where the northeast is capable of taking it. The fact that Aoi sandwiched the two other bands was a pretty clever tool as it set up the album for what's to come and let you breath before the unrelenting storm of guitars, screams and double basses comes after you in the case of both Katahdin and In Human Form. Aoi kicks off the album with a church choir of a tune before In Human Form steps up to the shredding metaphorical plate and plays about 18 minutes of raw in your face progressive blackened death metal. The unpolished sound of IHF really takes on a life of its own and is actually quite impressive. A mere 10 minutes into IHF's two songs (tracks 2 and 3) I realized how much these guys remind me of Portland's progressive black metal/death metal band, Waranimal! I'm no booker but those guys could seriously have one hell of a show together! Some kind of beach party from hell theme would definitely be in order! Throw Maine's Folk metal enthusiasts Falls or Rauros in there and the rest of the bands on The Black Hours and we would have ourselves quite the ungodly event!

The album wouldn't be complete though without Katahdin, who like In Human Form, are ushered in by Aoi, starting with a chanted chorus leading into a medieval fairgrounds anthem. Aoi settles down and in comes Katahdin like a metal bat out of metal hell, relentlessly exploiting the meaning of  thrashy black metal for 13 and a half minutes. With walls of sound thicker than blood and machine gun blasting, Katahdin's three tracks (tracks 5-7) are sure to make your head spin. Hopefully even bleed. The album soon after caps off at track 8 ("Todos Los Santos") by Aoi who play one more medieval jig before calling it good.

All three of the northeastern bands on The Black Hours come with a different approach at metal and/or folk and it surely makes for quite a listen. I'm not a big folk metal fan, but that's okay because this really isn't even folk metal... it's medieval folk rock in between black metal and New England folklore. And that my friends, is something I want to listen to.

Official page (for Brooklyn's finest medieval band, Aoi)
Bandcamp (Katahdin)
Facebooks (Katadin, In Human Form, Aoi)
Last.fm (Katahdin)
Last.fm (In Human Form)