Khors

Featuring former members of Hate Forest, Tessaract, and Drudkh, Ukraine’s Khors present their fifth full-length album with Wisdom of Centuries, which has a release date set for September 11, 2012. Khors if known for their use of various ethnic intruments in their arrangements and Wisdom of Centuries is no different. Their unique style of atmospheric black metal is evident with every track.

Khors tests the boundaries of any known genre, so a direct classification is near impossible, but whichever genre you want to lump them in, put an asterisk next to their name because they are on the verse of something special. I am not known to say that about many bands, so that is surely high praise.

The opening track, Black Forest’s Flaming Eyes, is a 9+ minute opus that sums up the album nicely. With unique sounds thrown into the mix of a bleak, desolate picture that Khors is creating, this track shows the promise that the rest of the album fulfills.

Directly following Black Forest’s Flaming Eyes is The Last Leaves which is just riffer madness. There is so much going on during this song and every part of it benefits the song entirely. This one is easily one of my favorites on the album. The melodic riffing is hypnotic and there are even a couple of guitar solos thrown into the mix. That is not something that you see in a lot of black metal, but it just seems to fit here.

If I had to file a complaint of Wisdom of Centuries, I would say that there are only 8 tracks, 4 of which are under 3 minutes. The album could benefit from a few more songs, but that is just me being greedy.