"Stridens Hus" is a Taake's sixth studio album. The comeback after 3 years of waiting impressed me a lot. And one of the reasons is that the album still has the original sound that Hoest has been working on for an almost decade, without any changes. The sound that has been partly reached in the fourth studio album "Taake" since then had become a noticeable feature. And I support the Hoest's decision to take a break with experiments and squeeze as much as he can from the base that he himself established after long years of wandering in the search for this inimitable sound. And you can actually see the history of this wandering if you will have a close meet with the whole discography from the very beginning. But this review won't be about those albums, obviously.
As I noticed before, I loved this album for its originality. Originality is one of the things that I like in such genre as black metal. And Taake does its work pretty good in this way. The originality, especially in the atmosphere, is what still catches my attention to every little piece of Taake's creation. Beautiful from one side and dark and gloomy from the other, this atmosphere takes you deep into Norwegian lands of the eternal cold and sorrow, and represents it with the full TNBM impression. Every time I start listen to the album , the first song, "Gamle Norig", takes me away from my room and pushes towards the North Pole below the night sky pierced with an aurora. And after that I don't notice how tracks are changing. It's the one big journey through which the author wanted us to guide. Except, I think, one moment. The song "Det Fins En Prins" reminds me of Taake's fifth album "Noregs Vaapen", which is the change, for me, personally, to the nostalgic mood. But, still, after, the rest of the album goes in the same mood that it started from the beginning. Which is awesome, because monotony has its own beauty.
I especially like the quality of the recording. Taake's sound is, in my opinion, exactly that perfect sound that black metal supposed to have in its modern, i.e. our, time (posers who are trying to simulate the very raw sound of 90's go to Satan). I like the guitar sound which is a bit reverberated but not as much as it would be annoying to listen to, but still it keeps the same (which is, again, good) stage as the sound on "Noregs Vaapen" (the good stage). The drums are bit harsher than on the previous album which is neither bad nor good, but give me a bit (still) different feel.
Unfortunately, we won't hear the banjo anymore (I'm still hoping to hear it in the next album, though), but we'll be able to check something new (hint: track No. 7) unusual for the standard black metal sound (and probably, even hilarious for someones), though I fully support these kinds of things, absolutely and undoubtedly.
By hitting the overall section I would like to express my opinion in relation to people who tell things like "experimentation lacking." No, friends, this is not the field for the experimentation you have been looking for, not even close. Still, I can't understand those guys who wait a miracle from black metal will make some kind of successful experiment (exactly, modern Satyricon is what called "an experimentation in black metal'), so you have chosen the wrong door from the very beginning.
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