Review by Felix on August 16, 2020.

Sinmara from Iceland is a band that drives me to despair. The dudes always give me the feeling they could have the potential to forge a perfect album, but in reality they do not even come close to perfection. Their unorthodox black metal wants to be more multi-layered, somehow blacker and more meaningful than the music of a “normal” genre combo. Yet at the end of the day, things don’t turn out the way they should. Hvísl Stjarnanna doesn’t change the status quo. It extends the line of outputs that are neither bad nor do they fully reveal the band’s ability to transform its talent into fantastic songs.

Over-ambitious and wayward while spitting on the conventions of a genre that itself spits on “normal” musical conventions, this is the way Sinmara operate. The result is half a dozen marginally overloaded tunes that have their good moments. They grow and they create big black holes, but the focus on the songs themselves vanishes exactly in these holes. Perhaps I should take this album as a sort of black metal opera where the overall atmosphere is crucial. But I am sorry, my old school 80’s mix tape asks for single highlights. Okay, the intensive title track has many positive elements. Its lines are hovering through space and time and invite the listener to take a journey through her or his own mind. What a shame, my mind is a small and dark place where thousands of brain cells are dying each day without having ever really lived before, but I guess I can’t blame Sinmara for this. 'Apparitions' is another good track. The opener kicks off the album with ominous guitar tones and creates a proper whirlwind, in particular at the fast-paced ending.

However, I wish the songs would have clearer contours. Sinmara are like a somewhat confused hiking guide. You trust him, you follow him, but you also see that the route he is taking does not always make sense. For example, this guide does not like to take a shortcut. Dudes from the island in the Atlantic, every now and then it is not forbidden to write a song that does not cross the five minutes mark. Compactness is something the artists are neglecting in an almost painful way. From this follows that the mix of the commanding, deep voice, the opaque guitar lines and the variable drums does not have the desired effect. Okay, even in view of its slightly blurred production, Hvísl Stjarnanna is a good output, but it offers not many moments that take your breath away. Compared to their talent and their skills, Sinmara run the risk of becoming constant underperformer. With the exception of 'Crimson Stars' that occasionally holds some pretty light and inadequate guitars, all songs reach a solid level, but is this really enough for a band with courage, style, instinct and ambitions? Don’t think so. Thus, I feel desperation is coming closer. Will Sinmara be able to manage the (necessary) turnaround in order to advance into the regions of 80+X percent?

Rating: 7.3 out of 10

Review by Felix on March 27, 2020.

A good album is always both a blessing and a curse when it comes to the creation of its successor. Aggravating the situation, things don’t get easier in case of a massive line-up change. Mark and Peter Brabbs had left the band and neither Cliff Evans nor the new drummer gained song-writing credits. Thus, Algy and Mick had to manage a Herculean task. Six new own compositions were the result of the creative process – and they delivered more or less the afterburner to This Means War. The opener 'The War Drags Ever On' reaches a good quality level, but simultaneously it sounds like 'Just Like Something from Hell Part II'. Its vibrations are very similar to those of the first piece of Tank’s album from 1983. So, this is my main problem with Honour & Blood: it holds good songs, but all of them have already appeared in slightly different versions. The equal arrangement of the track list (three songs on the A, four songs on the B side, an opener which crosses the eight-minutes-mark and the title track on the third position) underlines the short distance between the two albums.

I said that Honour & Blood presents good material and due to the formidable education my mother gave me, I did not lie. Nevertheless, the musicians present themselves in a pretty melancholic mood ('W.M.L.A.'), they drag themselves through six minutes of solid yet somehow slightly uninspired old-men-melodies ('When All Hell Freezes Over') or they fall victim to the repetitiveness of their own compositions ('Kill'). Especially the overlong closer is not immune against lukewarm rhythms and does not add much value to the fourth work of the band. The other tracks are, despite their improvable configuration, still pretty strong, but it also must be said that the cover version on the fourth positions is among the best pieces of the album. Its chorus (“Cha-cha-chain, cha-cha-chain, chain of fools”) finds its place in the long-term memory of the listener immediately. Generally speaking, with the exception of 'The War Drags Ever On', there are not many songs that I would pick out for a best-of mix tape of Tank. Of course, 'Too Tired to Wait for Love' is more aggressive and better than its title indicates and generally speaking, the material does not suffer from unforgivable mistakes. Most riffs reflect the compositional class of Tucker and Ward. Nevertheless, I thought that Tank did not intend to write the same album twice, but it seems that I was wrong.

Despite its slightly irritating title, it is a matter of course that Honour & Blood has nothing in common with any form of skinhead-ideology (if we accept that these dudes have an ideology at all, maybe they just connect crude thoughts to a wrong result). The lyrics mainly deal with the usual war themes which are complemented by two, well, love songs (without any kind of kitschy elements). Okay, to sing against the “mad sons of Islam” would have been dangerous for every German band, because at least 50% of the media would have blamed them for being Nazis. Lucky England! However, all in all, the lyrics are not the crucial factor of the adequately produced album. Once again, it sounded slightly polished while avoiding sterility. And this was the final parallel between This Means War and Honour & Blood.

Rating: 7.2 out of 10