The highest mountain in north Germany has the same name with one of the best Black Metal bands of this land known for the dipole of its scene 'cause inside you can find many nice bands but also a plethora of complete shit joke ones.
BROCKEN MOON started their frozen path back in 1999 by two individuals known as Grim and Humanhater with Pain being their firstly demo release in the same year. This one and the Schattenlicht Des Mondes demo 2003 re - released by the Heidens Hart label. Except all these their demo - logy includes three other ultra limited tapes that appeared during 2005 and in the same year Christhunt Productions offered us the debut album Mondfinsternis. After the pass of three years the band released the second album as a private one once again in limited copies and Northern Silence found as a good idea in offering it again some months later. And surely they did what had to be dome because this one must reach the ears of all those who want to set themselves in a really Black Metal soul journey.
The images and the feelings that this recording proclaims to the listener looks like a colorful parade; a story with a beginning, middle and an ending. Probably we have to do with a concept, besides there is a whole song divided in six parts based upon a fairy tale or something close to that. Excuse myself, but my knowledge in German language makes impossible to understand anything except the title of this song that is something like the fairy tale about the snow.
The beginning is close to bands like FLEURETY, the beginning of ULVER, or ALCEST and AGALLOCH mainly because of the clean guitar melodies settled above a wide Black Metal riffing. A calm and relaxing atmosphere with some blacking vocals in the first part and some like mesmerizing whispering in the second gives the impressions of calm before the storm. The change will happen in the third part with ultra screaming raven vocals close to IN THE WOODS, BURZUM and things like that. The soundscape changes complete, like a snowfall coming straight to your face, a sonic background that creates an illusion like the time is passing very quickly and the summer heat has been replaced by the aggressive winter. The big surprise was the beginning of the Part IV that made me wonder if I was listening to something like ILDJARN's hidden compositions. The cruel nature face is in front us and is revealed in all its glory.
This travel can also be described like a day full journey upon mountains, where the beginning is your morning ascent to the top, where an old hunted hut exists and is your final destination. Your road will cross woods and after the fall of the sun all the night spirits will awake and watch you. Your eyes cannot distinguish anything but your ears inform you about a whole hidden kingdom that lies in the dark. Songs like Part IV and Part V drives you into rumly and bizarre visions, a nightmare that cannot be told and is so powerful that only in a very few records can be encountered. The last part is a twenty minutes length monotonous tune, like ambient played by a constant guitar melody that works perfect if you listen it during the first steps of the sun's travel above the sky, when he leaves the shadow world in his infinite rotation. What comes to my mind giving you a better idea about it is songs like BURZUM's Tomhet or Rundgang Um Die Transzendentale Saule Der Singularitat. Probably a lot of people will find it boring 'cause of its ultra length but I believe is the best closure that BROCKEN MOON could put inside.
I could really write for hours about this record but I think it's better to stop and don't destroy the surprising element that this album can bring to the listener. One of the best for its genre, I will give a restrained rating although I'm quite sure that this record will be bigger inside me in the next months. But I'm very curious of what will be the next movement for a band like that.