Review: Helge – Neuroplasticity

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Helge

Neuroplasticity – Vendetta Records

 One look at the cover of Neuroplasticity should tell you that black metal band Helge don’t play by the rules. The stark white sleeve that houses their debut album is at odds with a genre that cloaks itself in shades of black yet it’s totally in tune with the glacial, frostbitten sound contained within. It’s almost as if Helge have absorbed their natural surroundings and, like a thunderbolt piercing a Nordic sky, ‘Disavow’ arrives with little warning, and it’s all the more powerful for it. Featuring a twin vocal attack that veers wildly between banshee wails and deathlike growls Helge have a sound that’s spewed from the very lungs of hades and, despite being heavy as hell, there’s something ethereal and ghostly about Helge’s sound, as if recorded by anguished souls cast into Dante’s Inferno. That Neuroplasticity is so fierce is no surprise as main songwriter Helge Nørbygaard has used music as therapy and this album is the result of him facing, and conquering, his inner demons. It’s another break from the shackles of black metal and this lyrical bent, when coupled with Helge’s ferocious sound makes for a pretty heady concoction.

Helge – Facebook

Review by Peter Dennis