A great deal of music across all genres is made in homage to what has come before it. It is the affection for something heard that provides the inspiration for something new. Often, this leads to mere mimicry at first, though sometimes it provides the foundation for subsequent originality. Sometimes, and more rarely, the homage is so striking, so eye-opening, that you almost forget where the inspiration came from, and we have an example of that today.

The young Croatian artist behind the black metal band Voha has made clear that in the making of Voha‘s new album Majestic Nightsky Symphonies, he drew inspiration from Dimmu Borgir as an important influence, but also was driven by inspiration from the likes of Emperor, Odium, Nokturnal Mortum, Obtained Enslavement, Sacramentum, Old Man’s Child, Vinterland, and Gehenna.

Creating symphonic black metal was the main goal, but Voha also used the album to express his love of fantasy tales, and so arranged it as a story of a Dark Lord and the Sorcerer who “helps him to regain the power of evil to forge new atrocity”. Continue reading »