Artist: Bronze Hall
Country: Finland
Label: Self-Released
Formats: Digital
Year: 2025
Introducing a new anonymous one-man army from Finland presenting its own debut album digitally via Bandcamp is not necessarily easy. What is there to say about such a project or album? Virtually just nothing, so Bronze Hall’s Raw/Pagan Black Metal may do that itself…
‘Honor & Steel’ came out some two weeks ago and caught my eye almost right away. The appealing cover art in combination with the band name and the album’s title were enough to give it a few spins. Although the person behind Bronze Hall, Yöpyöveli, keeps his identity veiled, I would be surprised if this is his first attempt of writing and recording music. Overall ‘Honor & Steel’ might not be entirely flawless, but the presented music is impressive and convincing enough to draw a cautious conclusion that Yöpyöveli is not quite new to the business.
As a whole, Bronze Hall clearly draws inspiration from heroic and epic Pagan Black Metal, but while bands like Falkenbach strayed from its original Black Metal path, Bronze Hall is very firmly rooted in the Raw-ish Black Metal tradition. Basically it seems to build on the same cornerstones that the majority of Graveland’s later records consist of. Yet, Yöpyöveli has a more “Nordic” approach and has a clearer Heavy Metal-like song writing – bolstered by the strong lead guitars. In fact, who remembers the Viking/Pagan Metal from the turn of the millennium, Thyrfing for example, might just add a bit of that to the mix, positioning the music somewhere between Graveland and Thyrfing.
Still, that doesn’t quite cut it. But at least it gives an impression of the musical foundation. Add to that a more modest and doomy atmosphere, lots of Folk music in the form of melodies and acoustics and you basically have a good picture of what Bronze Hall stands for musically. As a matter of fact, the music makes a true fit to both the albums cover and title. The band name on top of that more than completes the picture.
I already mentioned that the album is not completely flawless. Although I am aware that things might be just a matter of personal taste, I think the guitars could use a little more spice to it and the drum sound comes across a little flat too. To a certain extent that adds to the aforementioned bleak and dreary atmosphere, but I think it could be quite a bit more powerful without sounding too plastic or too much in the direction of Falkenbach’s current deplorable state.
Regardless of these minor side notes, ‘Honor & Steel’ is a very promising debut album, for now it is only available digitally from the band’s own Bandcamp-page, but I wouldn’t mind getting this one on cassette tape someday.
