:Golgatha: - The Horns of Joy

This year has been a very fertile for the folk and neofolk scene. The sound of the new albums of Sol Invictus, Hekate, Backworld and Death In June is still common in my headphones, but recently one more CD enters my home and opens my mind for a new trip. This time it is Golgatha that bring me joy and great entertainment with its new composition under the name 'The Horns of Joy'.

Golgatha is a well-known German project that has been active for 6 years and is full of delightful creations. Their music evolves from album to album, which makes it hard to predict what is going to happen in their upcoming CD's. Started the practice as more ritual ambient formation, the guys kept experimenting during all the years of their scene experience and as the result of last efforts is the transformation into more folkish, and from time to time, martial sound. Golgatha brings a huge mix of different cultures into their music, like European mysticism, oriental sounds of Middle East, heroic tunes of martial war drums, Christian choral chants and laments, all this create a spirit of ancient history, crafted directly into the heart of compositions.

'The Horns of Joy' is not the album for one time listening. It took me at least 3-4 runs in order to find the way into its complexity. When different genres rule the atmosphere, it is not easy to bind them into something that will sound shaped and plain, but Christoph and the company perform amazingly well to overcome those differences. Diversity is the key word for what I hear on this CD, when male and female vocals put together to create the symbioses of various impressions. Female voice leads more oriental pieces, full of hot sand, presence of long gone civilizations, dead gods and brave heroes, marching to the sound of a drum. The acoustic folk pieces are combined with male vocals, which in my opinion are the weakest part of the album, if it is possible to find any. When they just read the text, they are alright, and fit into the general structure. But when sang, there is a slight feeling of lack of strength inside the male voice.

"Even war is better than a wretched peace", and Golgatha definitely put the aphorism as the header for few songs in this album. "The Dogs of War" , "Hammer and Anvil", "The Sound of War", all of them put a statement of endless struggling and march for victory, that can only end in "Death in Honor". While the history is covered with bloodshed, wars and violence, the band transforms the knowledge of bravery and heroic deeds into the hymn of spiritual progress and mystical experience of strong hearts, when beautiful folk melodies accompany more brutal tunes to create one of more dense and intense albums of this year.

Buy yourself a copy, because it is not only the music, but also the art, that escort the spirit into your home. Oct 05 2011