After a short period of time where we at Metalrage did suffer from a tremendous amount of black metal albums, I decided to take my share of black metal just to try one album every once in a while. Hromovlad is a folk black metal band from Slovenia and released their sophomore album called Ohňa Hlad, Vody Chlad in 2007. Again I’m not a so called specialist in black metal luckily for me the music of Hromovlad involves a bit of folk and that is something I can relate to.

 

When you read the title it’s pretty obvious this album is completely sung in their native language, which is probably what every folk band should do. I mean what could be more folklore than your own language. After a long intro of some pounding drums and a back ground guitar the rest of the track finally kicks in. From my first reaction I noticed a lot of Bathory influences in the first track part but as the main vocalist kicks in with his almost spoken vocals they manage to create a sound of their own.

 

Of course within a folk genre you got to have some folk instruments in your music. The only thing I’m always scared of concerning folk instruments is how they end up in the mix. Most of the time they are added in background and you have to listen very carefully to discover them. With Hromovlad it’s the other way around. Most of the folk instruments, especially the flute, have a leading roll during the album. The only sad thing about this album is that the black metal part doesn’t affect me at all. I’ve been listening to this album for quite a while and I still think that most of the tracks are too much alike.

 

Although Hromovlad has a great production on this album, where they give the folk instruments the attention they need, they fail on the music itself because it’s too much of the same. But considering this is only their sophomore album I do believe Hromovlad has some potential.