Being high is a journey for me, and it typically only happens when I’m at home at night when I have time to venture in my head. If I put on a metal record and it takes me to relatively the same place mentally, that thing sticks with me. It’s not often I get that experience, maybe a handful of times a year, and it’s always powerful.

“From the Temple to the Grave” is Hieron’s first record, but right away it turned into fodder that provides a perfect escape. This isn’t the atmospheric cosmic stuff, which usually does the trick. Instead, it’s a little more straightforward from these nameless ghouls with a  miasma of nightmare mixed in to make the visions stain your psyche a little more effectively. The record is into a darkness so thick, you can never hope to see again. Its nature is to drive you through the layers of madness and into a reality unforeseen.

“Act 1: God’s Acre” whips in orchestrally before unleashing furious howls and a drilling force, the leads swelling and taking over. Brutal howls fire up a wintry front while a brief calm turns back into volcanic activity, roared words and boiling hell slamming the door closed. “Act 2: Reverence Lost” drives in, melodic blazes spreading, howls charring, the pace rushing harder as progress unnfurls. The ground rumbles as speed becomes a greater factor, electricity flowing and encircling, the drums mashing over a disorienting finish. “Act 3: Penetralia” starts with winds whipping, birds cawing, and then an eruption that tramples, howls washing over a storm front. Foggy echo immerses as vile howls and metallic might become a mightier foe, the intensity spiking over epic energy. Wails thicken as the playing buzzes, drums leave everything in the dust, and all elements rise for a blackened end. 

“Act 4: Forever Scorned” washes in liturgical organs, battle sounds clang in the background, and throaty cries attack as guitars swell. The tempo gets faster as the leads ignite and fire up fully, battering and bringing relentless pressure, finally choking out in fumes. “Act 5: Unholy Immolation” has a lacing pace and a melodic gush, the vocals strangling as the playing strengthens and rattles bones. The leads tangle as the heat grows unmanageable, burning and blasting, dashing strange colors across the horizon. Closer “Act 6: From the Temple to the Grave” brings a guitar gush and shrieks and growls mixing, an active pace keeping blood charging through veins. The playing turns forceful and catchy, a brief calm slipping into power reverberating, bells chiming, and strange chants icing your thrashing psyche.

“From the Temple to the Grave” is a pretty powerful debut for Hieron, one that takes familial black metal forms and injects their own spirit into the DNA. The madness and fury emanating from these tracks get inside you easily and transport you to experiencing a vortex with little to no hope that might mirror where we are now. This is a band on which to keep tabs as they seeps into black metal pools and continue to grow this beast from here.

For more on the band, go here: https://hieron.bandcamp.com/

To buy the album, go here or for more on the label, go here: https://vendetta-records.bandcamp.com/