Horna ‎"Kohti Yhdeksän Nousua" CD Digipack (Bonustracks)

* HORNA “Kohti Yhdeksän Nousua”: first full-length album from 1998, include 5 bonus tracks (Live In Imatra, Finland 1999).
6 panel Digipak edition limited to 300 copies, includes 5 bonus tracks (Live in Imatra / Finland 1999)

Now a cornerstone of Finnish black metal whose members past and present can draw connections to other bands in the scene such as Satanic Warmaster, Behexen, Baptism and more, Horna established themselves as a strong act in a country whose black metal scene was more or less monopolized by Beherit and Impaled Nazarene. With Imp Naz moving more toward a cleaner, somewhat more mainstream sound and Beherit falling off the grid entirely, Horna didn't so much have the black metal torch passed to them; more they took it for their own after having it dropped. After a strong demo-album in the form of Hiidentorni, this bandreleased their shorter debut full-length Kohti yhdeksän nousua.
Horna's heart and soul is its guitar player Shatraug; and despite the play style and sound on each Horna album being unique, the one constant trait is the use of catchy hookish riffs that work without sacrificing the evilness of the music. This trait would be picked up by other Finnish black metal bands and help the scene set itself apart from the more straightforward grimness of the Norwegian scene. As such, the riffs here on Kohti yhdeksän nousua are hard hitting and relentless and still have this catchy melody to them. The biggest two examples are the main riff of the album's thrashy opener "Örkkivuorilta" and the opening riff of "Imperial Devastation". With six actual songs plus an outro, this album varies its tempo quite evenly with its fast paced highlights with the more mid-paced "Sword of Darkness" and the slower pseudo-ending "Sormus ja silmä". The latter track also has a not so hidden bonus after it fades out as a rerecorded version of "Kun Lyömme Jumalan Kodin Liekkeihin", one of the best songs from Hiidentorni, fades in to finish the album with a bang.
This band has gone through a number of vocalists, but their first was Werwolf who would soon after start making a name of his own in his solo project Satanic Warmaster. He still remains my favorite Horna vocalist. His delivery here on Kohti... is just as grim sounding as his later solo material with his shrill shrieks. His strongest moment is actually right at the beginning of the album with his opening shout "Kristityn kuoleman myrsky!" followed by a series of black metal howls. Not entirely special, but still badass in its own right. Plus there is a bit of clean singing in "White Aura Buried in Ashes" and spoken word in the album's outro provided by guest vocalist Henri Kuittinen that add a good bit of effective grimness to the music.
This album is short, shorter than Gorgoroth's Pentagram when you consider the final three minutes are outro material. But there's so much varied quality material here that it's just long enough to leave an impact. Kohti yhdeksän nousua tends to be forgotten with the rest of the band's early material in favor of the later material with Corvus on vocals, but honestly it's not an album you want to skip if you're checking this band out.

Sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...