Artist: Onheil
Country: The Netherlands
Label: Black Lion Records
Formats: CD
Year: 2023
As a young metal fan around the turn of the millennium, just taking his first steps into Black Metal, there was one band in the Netherlands that caused some tumult with their first two demos (on the then trendy CDR medium) and mini CD: Onheil. Although the quality offered may have left something to be desired with today’s ears, I enjoyed listening to those demos, ‘Sterf’ (‘Die’) from 1999, ‘We Hebben De Hel Gezien’ (‘We Have Seen Hell’) from 2002 and the ‘The Threat’ EP released in 2003. Although I still occasionally saw the band perform live, I kind of lost track of Onheil in the second half of the 00’s.
That bit of personal history seems a bit exemplary for Onheil, because although I hardly saw or heard them passing by anymore, they still released two albums for German Cyclone Empire Records (‘Razor’ from 2009 and ‘Storm Is Coming’ from 2014). Onheil forever seems to be a band that has been hugely overlooked. Whether that will change with this latest album is of course (always) up for debate, but I can at least state without a shadow of a doubt that it will have nothing to do with the quality of ‘In Black Ashes’.
There is not much left of the sound of those first youthful releases with Onheil anno 2023. After more than two decades, the band has moved towards an impressive, multi-coloured sound in which a lot of space is reserved for Heavy Metal influences. With an edge of Death Metal here and there and even a stray Thrash Metal riff, the overall picture is actually complete: ‘In Black Ashes’ is much closer to Dissection than, say, Gorgoroth or old Darkthrone. It’s not infrequent that we are treated to impressive guitar wizardry on this latest work, something that not only suits the band excellently, but which by now more than fits the Onheil sound. The complex song structures and creativity splashes off, though without overdoing it or unbalancing the songs.
The gentlemen’s musical compass definitely seems to be working well, the course set some decade ago seems increasingly well found. The experience gained in those years pays off not only in well-thought-out compositions in which there is plenty of room for bombast and symphony, but which above all show the joy of playing. The aforementioned balance seems to be found almost throughout the entire album, but seems to be practically perfect in the middle part of the album: the melodic and symphonic elements there do not come at the expense of the venom of the songs. Thereby, in addition, the sound is also helpful in making ‘In Black Ashes’ a memorable album. The good production is especially striking when the band picks up the pace and treats us to some viciously fast and fierce tremolo-driven melodies. For instance, listen to ‘Beneath A Steel Sky’, arguably the album’s best track, in which the band packs together everything that Onheil stands for in 2023.
Incidentally, the question is where this is all going to lead, because the album’s closing track, ‘Master Of Disease’ is a downright Heavy Metal smasher in which the Black Metal content is reduced even further, almost to zero. In it, the muscular guitar work shines even more than in the previous tracks. So it remains to be seen whether Onheil still feels committed enough to the Black Metal genre or whether it will slowly abandon those roots and focus more on these “new” territories.
While comparisons with Dissection and its kindred spirits are more than obvious, it is also not too wild to recommend Onheil to those who, for example, have become enamoured with Moonlight Sorcery, Stormruler or Morbikon in the past year. It’s good to hear that there is increasingly room again for Black Metal with a lot of melody and a sense of dramatic bombast, but above all that Onheil, despite everything, just keep doing their thing. For my part, whether or not they get sufficiently noticed, there will always be room for Onheil.
