Hemelbestormer - A Ring of Blue Light (2018) EN

Wall of overpowering, almost brutal sound of guitars raw like winter in mountains, this is what the Belgian Hemelbestormer is the best in. In Dutch, their name signifies those, who "storm heavens" with their revolutionary ideas, their new album's cover art shows the heavens being stormed by a high mountaintop and their music is filled with storming, high-quality post-metal.

The album consists of a handful of long, epic compositions masticating with guitar noise but also letting the audience fall in love with this feeling and catch a breath in those sparse moments of peace. The latter is present for example in "Clusters", and the strength is needed to survive another incoming doses of the instrumental blizzard. There so much of this noise, no wonder that it is space that is the leitmotif of the album, space meaning something the scale of which overpowers even the strongest of us.

The musicians prove that noise can be served in various ways, like a raw dose of guitars ("Eight Billion Stars") or guitars supported by strong, almost danceable rhythm ("Towards the Nebula") or preceded by a tension-building intro ("Redshift"). They compare being on their concerts to being sucked in by a black hole. This year, some lucky bastards could taste the feeling during Dunk! Festival among others.

"A Ring of Blue Light" costs 6 EUR.

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