Year: 2019
Total Time: 29:25
Label: Lightning & Sons
It is not unusual for the Swiss to release an EP. After all, just with a demo (“Roman Acupuncture”) and two EPs (“Aura” and “Soma”) they managed to get themselves known and create their own fan community. Their first full length “Hero” came out in 2016 and we can say that, initially, it confused and divided their audience. This was a result of the “cleaner” approach of their sound and the addition of some clean vocals here and there. Their sound got cleaner and stayed like that in their new EP “Lese Majesty”, which continues right where their previous one, “Hero” left off. It is worth mentioning that “Lese Majesty” is released by BOLZER’s personal and newly founded label “Lightning & Sons”, a fact that gives them even more artistic freedom and easier management of their material.
The EP includes four songs of which one (“Æstivation“) is ambient with different sounds working as background for a monologue of their singer and guitarist, KzR. In the rest of the EP’s songs the two BOLZER members continue to offer us some superior quality Black Metal with Death Metal influences, which, in this work, is totally effective and excessively obliterating. But let’s be a bit more specific. As we said, “Lese Majesty” is the continuation of “Hero”. But now the ambient parts are minimal, resulting in very intense songs, with their structures reminiscent of their first two EPs. So, we have lengthy songs with many changes, either in speed or rhythm. The guitars have the characteristic BOLZER sound that works in such a way that the listener will not be bothered by the lack of the bass. That means the sound is rich and rough but at the same time clean enough, in order to hear everything perfectly. KzR’s guitar playing is one of BOLZER’s characteristics and, along with HzR’s special drumming, it is their sound trademark. The guitars were drawn a bit back during the mixing, compared to the drums and vocals. HzR is doing a very good job on drums and he is destructive here, as always. He is extremely precise and intense. The fast parts sound like the thunder that illustrates the EP’s cover and the slow parts are marching, almost ritualistic. The vocals, sometimes extreme and sometimes clean, are perfectly completing the sonic attack that BOLZER are unleashing in their new EP. The clean vocals are very much improved, not tedious and are used correctly when they should.
The Swiss are making sure that their work is always specially appealing, so they paid a lot of attention to the artistic part. The cover of “Lese Majesty” with the gold lightning is simple and very attractive, wrapping up ideally the whole package.
“Hero” may had divided their audience, but it never seized to be an outstanding work, almost perfect. But here the Swiss are serious. They continue to evolve their music and compositions and offer us another sample of their skill, which will be appreciated by their friends and will probably attract even more new ones.
Rating: 8/10
Editor: Giannis Karakasis
Related Link: BOLZER – Facebook Page
