005bvllet “Death Comes from the North” CD/ltd. DIGI
Siberian LIHOLESIE doesn’t need to be presented, and so it’s easy to guess that two tracks for this opus are in the ambient-industrial style. The compositions are quite freezing. Tracks by STIELAS STORHETT are as always involute in structure and not without melody and dismal character of their author. MOR are represented by one song (20-minute long) in their unpredictable progressive style. All tracks will be recorded with the use of the same sound that is why this album will be much more than just a split-album. It includes material specially recorded for this CD. No rehearsal, unreleased and other shit records. No profiteering. This is a powerful conceptual blow! From sound and lyrics to the minutest details of artwork! The number of copies is limited.
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Tracklist:

LIHOLESIE 1. Barbarians (Hosts of the North)
MOR 2. Kola Cross
a. kola cross
b. raven dark
c. icy father
d. sunless dawn
STIELAS STRHETT 3. Taedium Vitae
STIELAS STRHETT 4. Sic Itur ad Astra…
LIHOLESIE 5. Endless Expance of Coldness and Ice

All tracks recorded at autumn still ov 2007 especially for this ALBUM!

liholesie
stielas storhett
mor

(c) 2007 assavlt rex
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ORDER NOW!!
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SEE LAYOUT HERE
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: : REVIEWZ : :
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LIHOLESIE/MOR/STIELAS STORHETT
Death Comes From The North
Here we have a collection of songs for nippy nights, such is the preoccupation with the dark and the cold. Though the three artists don’t necessarily plough the same furrow, they share the harvest and so the Ambience of LIHOLESIE sits easy with the highly communicative Black Metal of MOR and even the clubbed baby fur seal, blood and beauty of STIELHAS STORHETT.
LIHOLESIE top and tail this split with flurries and shimmers of icy crystals blown across a desolate landscape, the closing track in particular guarantees frost bite with its Northern Blight hum and twinkle of petrified tree limbs. “Barbarians…” is less draining, perky piccolo teasing the bombast that it accompanies, the Neo-Folk/Ambient composition haughtily stomping along to a herald of horn and crashing cymbals.
“Kola Cross” introduces the jar of electric guitar, MOR’s contribution actually being a single track with four parts. MOR’s Black Metal is certainly progressive, it incorporates a number of Rock elements without employing the now ubiquitous Post-Rock contrivance, the lead guitar picks out a constant narrative, highly eloquent, it glides and spirals on thermals that the cold shouldn’t allow. As it is in fact one track, there’s no surprise in the constituent parts carrying a common theme, the intensity is gradually ratcheted up until “Sunless Dawn” veritably toboggans along alive with Black Metal vigour.
And so whilst the lead guitar may flicker like St Elmo’s fire along MOR’s wing, the rest of the instrumentation has a much rawer edge. The first three parts convey a bleakness, the rhythm guitar is jagged and riff based, the Jekyll and Hyde of the guitars working in stark contrast to each other, it’s only when “Sunless Dawn” streaks away that they reach a symbiosis, a necessary evil to ensure cohesion at speed. With the vocals providing an angst-ridden harsh barking commentary, you can’t fail to notice the emotive content of these songs, there is undoubtedly a story being told. On the evidence of this contribution alone, MOR certainly have a wider appeal than a Black Metal audience, or a Metal one come to that.
“Vandrer” was a Top 20 of mine a year or so ago and so I was looking forward to STIELAS STORHETT’s tracks. That album prepares you for being surprised, the core sound is re-worked to the moment and there is an even wider dichotomy here than MOR when it comes to the contrast between lead and rhythm guitar. When the lead soars, it does so right up to stratospheric levels, these two songs differ in pace and ferocity but the lead provides a constant that maintains identity. “Taedium Vitae” marches along, there’s a weathered texture to it and it’s the uplift of melody that provides the will to carry on, there’s a deliberate clumsiness of crash and bash but purpose is maintained despite the morose atmosphere.
It is STIELAS STORHETT’s second track that provides this albums highlight, his work always sounds more effective when there’s an injection of speed and “Sic Itur Ad Astra” is no exception. Rabid barbed guitar rips along with the sear of lead flying off at tangents before sweeping back down to buzz at its earthbound partner in grime. When the rush falters, the lead takes on a harsher tone as if the drop in pace allows the whir of the blade to slow enough to feel the teeth. In common with his album, there is a sensuality to his work as well as hints at faux classical structure, it is virtually impossible not to get swept up in the fatal embrace of this music, it draws you onto the rocks as sure as an island of sirens. Demonstrating solidarity with the harsher elements of these songs, the vocals snarl despair, clearly wretched as if expressing self disgust at not being able to match the dazzling drift of the guitar.
A gratifying listen then, three artists with differing perspectives but a common vision. MOR show a wider promise but STIELAS STORHETT can rip you apart on a freezing wind, as well as providing Black Metal that drips sensuality, that might have some of you gagging but I say with a straight face that STIELAS STORHETT makes Black Metal you can definitely shag to. Good luck in trying to find someone who’ll agree though.
METAL OBSERVER (8/10) - Russia - 2007/2008 (Online April 26, 2009)
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LIHOLESIE/STIELAS STORHETT/MOR
Death Comes from the North (Assault Records)
It is not every day that you come upon a three-way split concept album between three bands that have nothing to do with primitive gore metal with zombie artwork or chest-thumping “war metal” with Phillipinos dressed from head to toe in foot-long spikes, so it was with good interest that I put on this very well-presented compilation.  Of the three bands on here, I have only heard the rather unremarkable Stielas Storhett, so I was most curious of hearing the other two, and I can say that any positive expectations were well met.  Liholesie, as I later discovered (as the track listing in the CD case is mysteriously absent), make up the first and final instrumental tracks of the collection, offering two effectively bleak albeit not especially outstanding cases of northern-themed, drifting steppe atmospheres; although, in my mind, these associations come more from the artwork than the sound itself.  This work could just as much evoke images of a baked landscape in a tropical paradise.  So, in that sense, the Liholesie tracks profer a welcome degree of ambiguity and dynamism.  At best, one could say that the one-man Liholesie has good potential, as his tracks do work right in serving as a rather innocuous, almost transparent bracketing system to the other two bands.  Which brings me to Mor, whom I first thought, mistakenly due to the lack of track listing (again), were a continuation of Liholesie rather than a band of its own.  Mor, as it turns out, constitute tracks two through six, and jump out screaming into the world with a mid-paced, thrashy and generally loose-sounding variety of melodic metal with parts that bring to mind a little of older Katatonia.  The largest problem I have with this particular group, which is otherwise the best representative of this CD, is in the vocals which honestly sound as if they do not correspond to the music.  Coincidentally or not, they are mixed at a lower volume, almost as though to emphasize the condition of “What can we do?  He was all we had”, thus putting most of the emphasis on the guitar parts, a few of which are quite catchy and intelligently structured.  Regardless, however, Mor’s contributions leave something to be desired.  Finally, Stielas Storhett, from Murmansk, with tracks seven and eight, continue the metal chaos from the preceding Mor tracks with a stricter sense of continuity than the former and, you would think, a continuity of content as well.  The songs slip in to the proverbial one ear and out the other, in this case both at once (perhaps making their exit through other orifices?).  In any case, the Stielas Storhett songs are certainly above average, as with the Mor, this is certain, but seem oddly effete and powerless, nevertheless, leaving scarce trace in the mind after hearing them.  This is difficult to properly explain, actually, but it could be that having heard so many countless bands playing the same exact thing as Stielas Storhett (the least original of all three bands) unless something unusual happens, it is come to a point in me where certain songs do not even register in consciousness.  That is the unfortunate case with Stielas Storhett - though, as with Liholesie, it could be that they still have not reached the zenith of their creativity and maturity.  The ambition and drive is most definitely there, however, indisputably one of the most important elements any band must have to excel above others.
The layout of this unusual collection has a great wintry, old school and yet modern and original touch to it that adds a charm and high level of professionality to the overall package.  Especially attractive are the photos of the Russian (one assumes) landscape in winter, and the gold printed Cyrillic font in pseudo-Runish calligraphy, demonstrating, among other things, that a lot of care evidently went into the packaging of this split and adding another notch to push it above many others of its kin.  In fact, despite the rather ho-humish nature of Stielas Storhett and Liholesie, this nevertheless remains an interesting and curious package.
CONVIVIAL HERMIT Mag.
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LIHOLESIE / MOR / STIELAS STORHETT
Death Comes From The North
Assault Rex | CD | 2008 |
“Death Comes From The North” es un triple split que reune a tres de las bandas emergentes mas interesantes del panorama internacional, procedente de la lejana y fria Rusia. Liholesie, Mor y Stielas Storhett son los creadores de este conjunto de temas mas que interesante.
El split comienza con la primera de las dos canciones que aporta Liholesie, que por su caracter ambiental, es el elegido para comenzar y terminar el mismo. El grupo se mueve en torno al black metal ambiental, en al linea de grupos tipo Elffor, en su faceta mas folklorica e influenciada por los sonidos industriales. Aunque sencillo, este corte nos sumerge en el espiritu que envuelve el CD.
La descarga comienza con el tema, fragmentado en 4 partes, de Mor. Este grupo practica un metal progresivo bastante influenciado por el black metal y el folk, lo cual queda a la vista en sus ritmos y la progresion de los acordes. Para mi han sido todo un descubrimiento, quizas la sorpresa mas destacable de todo el split. Sus ideas recuerdan a unos ultimos Enslaved, a los antiguos Alcest o incluso a un death metal cercano a los comienzos de Opeth. Lo que mas destaca de ellos es la marcada personalidad que demuestran, a pesar de lo familiares que resultan, sobre todo por el hecho de la cantidad de grupos que salen actualmente en esta linea. No tienen nada que envidiar, en cualquier caso, a los mas grandes. Su aportacion es brillante y original, y muestra a la perfeccion de que es capaz este grupo.
Stielas Strhett es el tercero en discordia, y se trata de un proyecto one-man. Su propuesta es similar a la de Mor, aunque mas cercana al folk, y al black metal en la onda de los tipificados y antiguos Ulver, sobre todo en el caso del segundo de los temas. Lo mas destacable en el caso de este grupo es la variedad ritmica, sobre todo, lo cual ofrece una amplia variedad sonora. El CD termina con el citado tema de Liholesie, esta vez mas cercano a lo industrial, aunque tomando elementos del primer corte.
La excelente edicion en CD, con un artwork y fotografias realmente curradas, ya me obligaban a pensar que este split ofrecia mucho mas de lo que suelen. Con el, estos tres grupos se han formado un excelente escaparate para exhibirse, ya que, ademas, los temas han sido compuestos en exclusiva para la ocasion. La unica pega quizas es lo parecidos que resultan a veces Mor y Stielas Storhett en sus temas. Una pequenez, en cualquier caso, que no ensombrece ni de lejos el gran trabajo de los tres grupos. Esperemos poder escucharlos por separado en breve, aunque tampoco me importaria verlos de nuevo juntos si es en estas circunstancias. Desde aqui, solo darles mi enhorabuena.
PITCHLINE ‘Zine