Terzij De Horde is a blackened five-piece from Utrecht in The Netherlands. They have been around for a while now. They played allover their home country and toured the UK, Ireland and Germany. The rest of Europe will probably soon get acquainted with this brutal quintet because there's no stopping them now that 'Self' is unleashed upon the world. The album deals with the possibilities and limitation of one's self. In six songs, Terzij De Horde created a haunting, hypnotic trip through their own inner-self and try to make the listener question his own. They do it with an uncontrollable passion.
Musically, the album can easily be located between modern-day black metal actss like Wolves In The Throne Room, Wiegedood or Altar Of Plagues. Yet, there's quite an amount of doom and sludge metal involved. In that way of course, Terzij De Horde place themselves firmly in the "post"-scene. 'Averoas' for example, is a stunning piece of blackened doom. As my collegue Paul would say, 'this song is sick'. I guess that makes it my favorite one on this album since I really dig slow sick songs.
Most of the songs are fierce pieces of blast-beats driven black metal songs though. 'A Marriage of Flesh and Air' and 'Contre le Monde, Contre la Vie' could arguably be seen as highlights of that mesmerizing brutality. Here too, some post-hardcore influences are interwoven into the already throat-grabbing music. Mainly the vocals seem to fall between both genres, borrowing from each but still completely, well, 'Self'. These frightening screams provide Terzij De Horde with a bit of a unique identity in the current blackened scene, which is a good thing.
'Geryon - See Extinguished the Sight of Everything but the Monster' perfectly combines all of the above, blending it into one of the most intense pieces of modern day extreme music I've heard recently. That being said, you definitely have to be prepared to be able to listen to this music. It certainly isn't suited for everyone, only for the select few who dare to cross the borders between extremes. Yet, they will absolutely cherish this blackened gem. I'm quite sure of that. Highly recommended...
Serge