Tech Death Thursday: Henker
Prepare to be pulverized.
Let’s have a little chat about Henker. Henker is a ridiculously insane band from Flemalle, Belgium. I’m gonna try putting a description first this time just to change things up a bit. You all can let me know which way you prefer in the comments. So, the short description of this band would be Origin with even crazier drums. I’ll let that sink in. Yes I did say crazier drums. Henker have some of the most inhumanly fast drumming I have heard. I’m sure some of it is via the use of quad pedals, but that doesn’t make it sound any less impressive. Aside from the drumming, the guitar and the bass are absolutely blistering. What I notice about the guitars in this band is that they tend to play different styled riffs than most other bands. It’s hard to describe what I mean, but sometimes when you hear a riff you think wow that is pretty awesome, but at the same time it feels like you have heard it before. I don’t get that feeling at all when listening to these guys. All of their riffs and solos sound completely unique aside from the fact that the actual tone is extremely reminiscent of Origin.
Sometimes I’m not sure if I’m listening to Henker or Origin until I look at my screen, but hey, a comparison to the mighty Origin is never a bad thing. The vocals are nothing to scoff at either and can be heard clearly along with the rest of the band, due to the great production. Henker also adds a slight eastern tinge into their music which does a great job of accenting it. However, don’t think for a second that these guys just wank; they bring the riffs, and they bring them fast. One of my favorites of those riffs is in the intro to “Mental Corruption“. That particular song also has some unbelievably fast drums in its outro. I mentioned that the band has a slight eastern tinge, and you can hear it mostly in the beginning or the end of the songs. I haven’t heard much of the eastern stuff mixed in to the songs. I think that is something that could sound pretty cool if they managed to pull it off on the next album. Regardless of that, there are some absolutely chaotic songs on Slave Of My Art. I would say the craziest of them all is album closer “End Of The Road“, which melts your everything off in the span of about two minutes, after which it lets you down lightly with some eastern atmospheric sounds. That, ladies and gentlemen is how you close out an album. Seriously though, these guys really need to do a tour with Origin. That would just be mind blowing. Henker’s debut album Slave Of My Art came out in 2010. Hopefully this means we are due for a new album from them soon, because I really want to hear what this band comes up with next.
I could keep going on about how this band reminds me a lot of Origin, how intense their songs are, and how their drumming absolutely blows my mind, but I feel like this is one of those cases where it’s really just better to let Henker’s ridiculous music do the talking for me. Here’s a bandcamp stream of Slave Of My Art:
I have to apologize here as I was a super slacker this week and totally didn’t realize that tomorrow was Thursday. Due to this excessive lifeloving, I didn’t notify my friend who had planned a guest submission in time. Luckily though, I received an email from a lurker here a few days ago, and I’m gonna use one of the bands he told me about to fill the spot left open by my laziness. Anyway, this guy sent me a decent list of bands he suggested I feature. While I was aware of a number of them, some of them I had no idea about and I’m currently going through them. So, shout out to Thexenosapien for alerting me to more bands first of all, and second of all for turning me on to Dysmorphic. No, not the Exhumed song (which is awesome btw). Dysmorphic are a band out of Paris who released their most recent album, A Notion of Causality, via Unique Leader Records (sounds familiar) last year. Dysmorphic is what would happen if Origin and Gorod had a baby who then hooked up with Inferi later down the line. While I haven’t heard enough of their album to give a super accurate description just yet, what I have heard has catapulted them to the top of my “must listen to more of this band” list. And again, thank you to Thexenosapien, I’m slowly going through that list you sent dude. Check em out:
Until next time,
-Bauer
(Photo VIA)
