Harrow
Fragments of a Fallen Star

Harrow again, it seems like the Canadian band is releasing a new album following last year’s pretty boring release Fallow Fields. It proved however that this album was released before that album, in 2013 on digital and cassette. Now Hypnotic Dirge Records releases it on CD, which is, jolly nice of them. It kind of looks interesting with a cool artwork and descriptions of blackened folk metal and those kinds of things. I do think sludge, doomish black metal and such things could also describe the sound of this album.

Like Fallow Fields that I reviewed last year it is sonic landscape painted in big brush strokes, most of the time in a really low tempo with some instances where it speeds up a little. Decent variation but built on a somewhat monotonous core with a very strong production; the sound is rather impressive as you can also say about the performances even though the growled vocals aren’t exactly great. With this album we get four tracks but still a playing time of near forty minutes, meaning that the tracks are nearly ten minutes on average.

And they are pretty good tracks, they offer interesting music with good feel to it. The growls could be better and I mostly like it when it really picks up the pace, which doesn’t happen too much. There are no standout tracks on the album and the best parts are parts of songs, most of the songs have great stuff in them. In the end though this album still doesn’t quite fly and though it works I doubt it will be interesting to a larger audience.

Fans of Harrow and the music of the mentioned similar bands will probably find this album very interesting. However, I doubt that it will bring them fame and glory. It feels like Harrow has a bit album in them, they just haven’t managed to find it yet but they are closer with this album than they were with Fallow Fields.

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