Featured Review #32: Cocytus by Hora

[ShanethVarosa 1209]

Artist: Hora Album: Cocytus Score:

EDM super producer, Hora, is one of the most unique figures in the Visual Kei scene today... And has been for over a decade. Where most visual rock stars compose songs that are largely based on electric guitar, bass, and drums; Hora only uses his homemade synthesizers to create some of the greatest dance music you'll ever hear in your life. While he prefers to remain as obscure and indie as possible, if he would open himself up to a more global market he would surely give acts like Tiesto and Afrojack a run for their money. /p>

Over these past 13 years, Hora has composed around 45 songs for darkwave/trance duo Schwarz Stein; but a staggering 119 songs for his solo career and all while using vocals so sparingly one would wonder how he could keep it so constantly interesting.... The short answer is that it isn't always interesting, I'll admit. Being a huge fan since day one of Schwarz Stein, I also follow Hora's and Kaya's solo activities quite closely and have always listened to Hora's solo albums no matter how disappointing they ended up being. However, it seems that he managed to reignite the fire of his solo project around 2 years ago when he released Cocoon and then kicked it up about 70 notches for Desolation Beauty last year, ultimately resulting in this year's splendid Cocytus.

 

This is the first album of material he's produced since Schwarz Stein's official return to the scene and it shows. This album is significantly darker than his last one and utilizes the same sort of synths that were featured in Schwarz Stein's most recent single "Sleeping Madness" and by that I mean the beats are hard and fast. The album opener is fairly typical for Hora, unfortunately. Very melodramatic and slow and ultimately just very repetitive. The song drags on way too long and doesn't provide the listener with much intrigue. Along with Underwater and Winter Blood, this song can be skipped to prepare yourself for the real meat and potatoes of the album.

The second track is one of the absolute best Hora solo songs I've ever heard. "Frost" has the dramatic Hora flair that one must appreciate in order to be a fan while also delivering one of the hardest beats of his career. Please, please listen to this song above and you will not regret it. Following up this magnificent song is the second best song on the album, "Babel," which is considerably darker and deeper than "Frost." This is also his first composition in a long time that utilizes his harsh vocals. The only lyrics on this song, or the whole album in general, are "Let there be light." Title track "Cocytus" is a lot like album opener "Chamber of Fear" in that it's rather long and drawn out and does sort of the same thing continuously for no real added effect. Additionally, the use of string instruments becomes quite gratuitous when you're trying to listen to a dance album, but I digress. This is all just opinion, of course. The use of string instruments is something I've appreciated over the years and can see why people would enjoy their existence, but sometimes it's just too much.

Tracks 5 and 10 are essentially a two part series known as "Pray to God." The former song "Doom" has the same spacey quality as "Without Words" but in a much lighter atmosphere. The beat takes a while to kick in, but once it does it's actually quite fast and played under the melody of the piano to produce something very lighthearted (ironic for a song called "Doom," right?) The second in the series, "Heir" has a very interesting introduction. It's super glitchy, meaning there's no beat but the synths sort of skip around and sound like a broken video game. The second synths kick in not long into the song and create a continuation of the spacey vibe that "Doom" sets up. When the piano starts in this song it immediately echoes the piano of "Doom" and finishes out by adding a slower version of the beat in its predecessor.

Other extremely notable tracks are "My Vendetta" and the aptly-yet-reduntantly-named "Without Words" which are heavy/dark and mid tempo respectively. "My Vendetta" is the shortest song on the album and packs a decent punch in just 3.5 minutes... Which is actually a great thing considering if it had gone on too much longer it would get into the too-repetitive category due to the fact it doesn't change it's beat that much and is sort of a lot of the same sound. "Without Words" is more elegantly composed and utilizes more than one sound to make it's point. While I could see how someone could describe it as "lengthy," it has an ephemeral and spacey quality that hasn't quite been prominent on Hora's albums since Prominence in 2006.

All in all, this is definitely among Hora's best solo works. I highly recommend it as a general piece of music and find that it could likely be appreciated by all walks of life as it isn't too intense in any one genre at any one point. That being said, I do hope that Hora's and Kaya's priority over the next few months is to create a full-length Schwarz Stein album. I find that Kaya and Hora work best when they're together even though their individual talents are something quite formidable. It's like combining the two best things to make something even more impressive. Hora is the chocolate to Kaya's peanut butter or the Sonny to his Cher. They're best when together.

[Zein 12]

Well, I liked the disc but to said the truth, Hora + Kaya are a match, so I'm with you Shanet . I like Hora, he has too much talent and since Schwartz Stein I really loved his work. His sound is unique and you'll find a incredibly mix of sounds that makes his music so fascinating. I like hows always so dark XD and different in so many ways to the actual j-music.

 

And yes, I recommend this.

Thanks for the Review!