Hel - Orloeg (1999)

Back about 8 or 9 years ago there was this Greek guy on eBay that I often times bought CDs and LPs from. Most of the time it would start out with this seller having one particular CD I was looking for but I’d always end up browsing the rest of his store because he had tons of great black and Viking metal CDs for $8 to $10 each and often times good descriptions to go with them, which often times lead me to making blind purchases of bands I’d never heard of before. I remember through this guy I heard bands like Wyrd, Taake and Hel for the very first time.

Hel (a being that presides over a realm of the same name in Norse Mythology) was formed in Germany back in 1994 and quickly released demos in ’95 & ’97 and later their debut album, ‘Orloeg’ arrived in 1999. Orloeg is a strange sounding album of mid-paced Viking/Pagan black metal with traces of some truly epic moments. I say this album sounds strange because I really can’t think of any other album that sounds exactly like it, though I might reference Falkenbach’s, ‘En Their Medh Riki Fara...’ album as a possible comparison since the speed of the music, epicness and production qualities seem to be quite similar though still the overall result is a bit different sounding.

The songs on Orloeg generally move at a mid-paced speed with keyboard/piano usage, some well placed guitar solos, acoustic guitars, a little Jew’s harp here and there and plenty of grand moments with only occasional flashes of extreme speed and chaos within this hour long album. The vocals range from raspy mostly understandable screams to heroic sounding clean vocals all of which is of course in the German language. I must also say that the song, ‘Wunden’ is definitely one of my favorite Viking/black metal song s ever, ‘Der See’ is super catchy and the outro, ‘Spuren’ is surely one of the most majestic synth endings out there.

Five years ago this album was re-released/re-mastered by Det Germanske Folket records with two bonus cover songs as well as a re-designed booklet/cover. Orloeg is definitely an album to check out, especially if you prefer your Viking metal to be a little more on the raw side and to actually show characteristics of black metal too.