Yusuke Hasebe (aka just Yu) is one of those musicians who can be defined euphemistically prolific: with his solo project No Point In Living, in fact, from 2017 to date has published the beauty of 18 full lengths without being missed even some other release of lesser length. At this point it is legitimate to wonder why Heathen Tribes has taken the trouble to reissue the fifth album The Cold Night, originally released in November 2017, since the material recorded by the Japanese musician around there is already enough. The answer is that, frankly, our possesses a remarkable talent, although constantly at risk of being watered down by his compositional bulimia, and The Cold Night is there to prove it with its three quarters of an hour of depressive atmospheric black beyond convincing. I admit that I don’t know the rest of Yu’s discography, but if the quality of each release was equal to that of this work it would be an almost miraculous event: I doubt, in fact, that you can think of keeping high with such frequency an emotional tension as that exhibited in the long I Hate Everything or in the slightly shorter Path To The End, just to give some concrete examples. The Cold Night shows, however, a remarkable balance between the different components of the sound and, while not shining for its originality, deserves to cut out more than a distracted listening by those who love the black metal in its melodic depressive aspects. Meanwhile, the Stakanov of Sapporo, when we have not even arrived in mid-June, during 2019 has already published three full lengths and an ep for a total turnover of about two and a half hours of music: in short, being able to follow the exploits can be started even for the most hardened fan, so you just have to try to intercept the work from time to time to see what is the state of the art.

2018 – Heathen Tribes