Despite this being Hellveto’s 11th full-length (someone is cranking out album like Striborg) Neoheresy was introduction to this self-proclaimed “orchestral pagan metal” band. Based on simply that categorization I was almost positive that album would not be to my liking, but about 30 seconds into “Taran”, the opener, I though maybe I was wrong. My predominant qualm with “pagan metal” is that it is cheesy as hell, goofy keyboards, operatic vocals and predicable simply melodies, thankfully, Hellveto does not fall pray to any of these genre clichés. What is so interesting about Neoheresy is that, when taken apart, each instrument’s role is fairly simple, solid melodic guitar parts consisting of 4-bar phrases and so forth, simple drums, etc. But the magic of the album is in the layering of these individual simple elements in order to create a complex and original take on pagan black metal. Sole member L.O.N. has definitely learned something through his (her? Can’t really tell from the metal-archives picture…) 13 years in Hellveto (not so much can be said about Sin Nanna of Striborg though), he creates perfectly layered and varied compositions. Varying as much as from a Lord-of-the-Rings-esque Orc war chant to beautiful and competent melodic passages that converge to make an undeniably epic atmosphere.

Although I have spent a large portion of this review throwing praise at Neoheresy, which is not to say that the album doesn’t have its problems. As I mentioned, most of the compositions on this album find their strength in being many simple lines layered intelligently over one another. Within this strength there is an inherent weakness, the simplicity of the lines makes the listener become bored as soon as they have fully dissected and discovered every element in each song (which took me about 3 or 4 full listens). Also, the production is rather strange, the vocals are buried in the mix in such a way that they become rather camouflaged within the songs, which makes the album almost impossible to listen to without headphones or at least a good set of speakers.

All in all Neoheresy is a solid and interesting listen, although it did not hook me to Hellveto I feel that is was a positive introduction to a very competent band.