From: Occult Black Metal Zine
Published: November 17, 2016
Original LinkHarrow are a band from Vancouver B.C, Canada that has been featured before in this zine and plays a cascadian style of black metal that is also very heavily influenced by folk music and this is a review of their 2013 album "Fragments Of A Fallen Star"which was re-issued by Hypnotic Dirge Records.
Atmospheric synths start off the album and they also give the music more of an ambient and psychedelic touch and after awhile guitar sounds are added onto the recording and when acoustic guitars are utilized they bring in elements of folk music and a decent amount of clean singing can also be heard at times.
All of the tracks are very long and epic in length and when guitar solos and leads are utilized they are done in a very melodic post rock style while also getting more aggressive at times and the heavy riffs also bring in a great amount of melody and the heavier vocals are mostly grim yet high pitched black metal screams and you can also hear all of the musical instruments that are present on the recording.
When the music speeds up a great amount of tremolo picking and blast beats can be heard which also gives the music more of a raw black metal feeling and the songs also bring in a decent mixture of slow, mid paced and fast parts and tribal beats can also be heard in certain sections of the recording while some tracks also mix in elements of drone and doom metal and they also mix the acoustic parts into the heavier sections of the songs as the album progresses and the last track is all instrumental.
Harrow played a style of black metal on this recording t hat was very atmospheric in the cascadian tradition while also mixing in a lot of folk music elements, the production sounds very professional while the lyrics cover nature, conflict and atavism themes.
In my opinion this was a very great sounding recording from harrow and if you are a fan of folk influenced cascadian black metal, you should check out this re-issue.
Rating: 8/10