Ambient black metal has always interested me because you can do so much with it and make a completely interesting worlds with the added effects alongside vicious vocals, guitars, and drums. But for HaatE’s upcoming 3-track album “Breed: The Forlorn Majesty” that was not the case for me, personally. While I’ve no complaints about the length of the songs which vary in length between 17 and 22 minutes for each as that’s just part of the genre, there wasn’t much variation in the tracks. Sure, each track sounded different compared to others in their own unique ways, but inside each track everything seemed drawn out and reused. In the defense of the album and its genre, I understand that there’s a heavy ambient/atmospheric element that’s really trying to be enforced – and it was. But in each track there wasn’t much change than what happened in the first minute or even the first five minutes. Everything was at the same volume which added this kind of neat blending off all the elements, but the one thing that was louder than everything else were the digitally added effects for atmospheric that were always persistent. Got old after 10 minutes of listening to it play the same noise over, and over, and over, and over again. Obviously I’d be lying if I said I enjoyed this album as I think there’s definite room for improvement, I do not think that this was as bad as it could’ve been with some things getting my thumbs up in approval like the harsh sounds of the vocals and the occasionally nice riffs that would come from the guitars. I do suggest this for any fan of ambient/atmospheric black metal because this is definitely slower, more methodical than any other of the genre I’ve heard and will definitely be enjoyed by people who enjoy that kind of music, I’m sadly just not one of them.
You can stream the first track off of “Breed: The Forlorn Majesty”, “Pour the Wisdom Into the Chalice of Life”, via YouTube below.
