Netherlands never was a big name in black metal, but this has not prevented new acts to take the aim and push the genre on to contemporary years. Case in point, Helleruin, is a solo project of Niels Kuiper, who was also the member of other now-abandoned projects like Locus Amoenus and Orewoet, giving precedence to this one. The project was formed in 2015, but issued only two studio albums so far, of which 2021’s War upon Man is the first one.
That said, the album’s premise is a bit off the mark. The cover artwork, featuring the xeroxed white-colored portrait of the founder giving a fist to the camera wearing 50 cm long wrist spikes, suggests yet another emulator of Darkthrone and Craft, and while the results sound akin to the two bands, there’s something else thrown into the mix as well. Featuring microtonal-sounding lower guitar tuning (somewhere between C# and D), the lengthy tracks consist mostly sledgehammer-like rhythms akin to primal hardcore punk, and there’s some basic power-chord slam in addition to familiar droning tremolos and double-bass sections. Opener None of Us is a fine snapshot of the album, starting with propulsive punk-tending low riffing akin to Mgła and Horna, settling for more melodic melodies influenced by Dissection and Sacramentum around the second half.
The rest of the cuts features the same elements. The far longer No Elegance / Entrenchment looks like two songs stitched together, Passage is the requisite martial cut in 6/8 time and the final two tracks’ droning G-minor riffs are totally Uada (the final one’s outro even includes bits of acoustic guitar). Production is edgy, featuring blazy mid-high frequencies, shrilling background tremolos and balance among the instruments, including the vocals, rich in reverb, which is a nice touch: however, the guitars’ fuzz-tending, rough distortion may betray some influence from the “raw black” scene as well.
Hardly genius, this album is a concise first step into the business with both competent songwriting and sound engineering to qualify as a decent debut. However, it doesn’t excel at anything, and doesn’t feature many winning hooks to increase its value. By comparison, the second one features more bombastic wall of sound, but also more confusion in the mixing, which makes this one more preferable instead.
Sample: youtube.com/watch?v=TGzma7ej9_A
