Review - House of Apparition

House of Apparition
House of Apparition

It's hard to come up with an opening sentence for a review.

House of Apparitions is a one-man black metal band who has been releasing mostly untitled/self-titled material since 2012, and that's about all anyone seems to know. Fortunately, the music is all you need to know - a dark, corrosive mixture of noise and black metal that sticks strictly to the DIY aesthetic of the genre, while still managing to make well-produced, top-quality music. I don;t listen to much black metal, but this new album is already one of my favourite records in the genre. It's quite similar to early Burzum - harsh, very focused on the higher end of the scale, with high screams and fuzzy, trebly guitar. All four songs on House of Apparition are called "Untitled," because pretention is super kvlt, and all four of them sound very similar - mostly fast, but not grindcore-fast, with a raw, unpolished drum sound that fits perfectly with the general aesthetic. Listening to HofA's other work, it looks like he/she has upped the production values considerably on this record, which is definitely a good thing. I love super-lo-fi metal, but there's a lot to be said for actually being able to hear all the insruments.

All in all, a quality album.

Rating: 7/10