HORTE

Having recently waded shyly into the shallow end of the post rock kiddy pool, I thought I would practice intersectionality and look for a few sub genre members who hail from that bastion of all that is deliciously depressive, but still lick worthy even if it's happy. I'm talking Finland of course! And so I arrived at HORTE, a newish group with, as it turns out, non rock female lead vocals to go with the rock instruments to go with the music that used to rock.

Apart from the opening pastoral instrumental "Sekvenssi" ("sequence") and the closing atmospheric rocker "Saato" ("adjustment"), this really doesn't work for me, as the robotically angelic vocals don't mesh well with the metallic guitars or plodding rhythms. It's a rather poor facsimile of a facsimile of THE GATHERING, and the industrial sludge that is "78" would at least be over faster if it was played at that speed.

If pressed, I'd add "Helmi" to the nice list, but even then this barely gets to the 2.5 star level and is only 38 minutes long, which in the post rock paradigm means maybe 3.5 musical ideas, and not enough motivation for a round up.