One of the freakiest metal albums this listener has had the pleasure of hearing, Jaldaboath's Hark The Herald walks a fine line between black metal, war metal, and comedy. Jaldaboath was previously a key member of cult metal group Meads of Ashphodel. He's been M.I.A. for a while now so people are pretty psyched to hear this one...
Into a perverse black metal sensibility Jalaboath incorporates elements of Knights Templar mythology and an ancient English battle sensibility perhaps borrowed more from Monthy Python than any real sense of history. A concept album of the weirdest sort - it's hard to tell what these crazy English dudes are thinking.
The music is a bizarre mix of prancy, francy, nobly galloping orchestral merriment replete with trumpet calls and rolling tympanies, heavy black metal riffing and some stuff that sounds more like a parody of more commercial forms of metal. Seek The Grail has moments that sounds almost like a soundtrack for adventure on the high seas. Is Jalaboath referencing the possibility that the Templars sailed to Nova Scotian and deposited the Grail treasureat the fabled Oak Island site? Quite possibly. Truly odd and great fun.
The stronger songs are those with the psuedo-medieval music themes and the orchestral instruments - in and of themselves they are pretty awesome and make you want to (a) get drunk on mead and prance about a mead hall and (b) go into battle in search of Holy Grail on a trusty steed with chain mail and sword held high. The way these parts are edited and put together with the harder metal elements is equally strange to everything else here and strangely compelling.
At it's best, Hark The Herald is some of the best metal you've ever heard, at other points it comes off as strangely schlocky and/or thrown together. I don't feel capable of putting this oddly funny and strangely addictive listening experience into words - I urge you to check it out for yourself. Quite possibly my vote for metal album of the year if not the decade.
