Horrified is a bit of an unknown fledgling of the Mediterranean black metal flock. They do have quite an extensive history but were never really picked up by the public radar like a fair part of their Greek peers. To bring them under attention Black Lotus Records released a nice package of early Horrified material a few months ago. What we get here is a remastered version of their debut full-length, In The Garden Of Unearthly Delights, alongside the two early EPs, The Ancient Whisper Of Wisdom and Eternal God, topped with an extra song of more recent making; ‘Etah Morena’.

The music of Horrified can be described as typically Greek; going back and forth between death and black metal they integrate a whole range of orchestral and doomy parts that make the music diverse without becoming inconsistent. They wield this relatively raw, organic and murky sound that makes you feel like they’re playing for you from within some deep grotto, which I’ve always held to be characteristic for early Nightfall or Deviser. Like these better known acts, they seamlessly combine a symphony of heavy, plodding and echoing riffs and reserved discharges of energy with strummed eastern-sounding tunes, prolonged guitar solos and (classical) female vocals. All of this is structured with a very nice restrained sense of melody. One of the most distinguishing elements of the Greek bands might be that they usually do not repeat a riff at length, but vary them constantly within a theme; no combination of chords is played more than four times, keeping the music intriguing and intelligent. Horrified does exactly this.

While conceptually floating between the real extreme, obscure and occult themes and the more fantasy oriented dark metal, our Hellenistic brethren also seem to have mastered the art of invoking a truly mysterious engaging musical experience.

This somehow often comes across as more genuine musicianship than the majority of the grim black metal hordes that merely try to sound as malevolent and otherworldly as possible. Often denounced, or, rather, pigeonholed, as ‘romantic’ or ‘soft’ these bands seem to realize that contrasts are desirable to create moving music. Again Horrified emulates the tradition.

Whereas being heavily influenced, Horrified succeeds in writing music that contributes, if in details, to the subgenre. The band not only skillfully channels the described approach into decent tracks like ‘Down At The Valley Of The Great Encounter’, a lengthy song with a nice marching pace and really fitting melodies, but also add tasty soloing climaxes (‘Unbridled God’) and original epic keyboard arrangements (‘Poetry Of War’). While highlighting a few, I should however emphasize that for an optimal experience the record should be listened to as a whole. As for the additional tracks, I can say that ‘Etah Morena’ is a nice instrumental, absolutely worth hearing, as are the early releases with fine little gems like ‘Astral Submersion’ and the somewhat earlier Rotting Christ influenced Eternal God EP.

Released almost a year ago and not received jubilantly, this album can probably be found in the low-prized section of your favorite retailer (like at mine). Pick this up if you can – it’s worth it.