With such a barrage of new releases hitting, we have inevitably built up a backlog, and one band which have been sitting on our music listening playlist for a couple of weeks now is a Norwegian project entitled 'Matterhorn'.
Matterhorn was first formed back in 2015 by Tommy Sebastian Halseth, a long time contributor to the local music scene in Trondheim with bands such as Atrox, Griffin and Wattermezz, some of whom can easily still be tracked down online. It's taken Matterhorn (a name which I love...) a while to get moving, but they've now released 2 tracks, 'Aorta' and 'Bleeding Under Water: Aorta Part 2'.
There are a number of things that i really like about these tracks, at 8 minutes and 5 minutes long, they do have an 'epic' feel to them, there's no attempt to try and squeeze everything into 3 minutes 30 seconds. Instead musical themes are developed, intensity is built over time, and extended instrumental sections add character and a rich musical texture to the sound. So I guess there's some progressive rock influences behind the music, and on the very day when the new Major Parkinson album is finally released, we all agree that's a good thing.
'Aorta' is such an interesting track with an unusual middle section that I think works well, and I just love the slow build up in the latter part of the track to this huge musical climax, but I guess at the heart of the song the success is the melancholy vocal melody that (albeit slowly...) carries the track forward. 'Bleeding Under Water: Aorta Part 2' is another slow burner, I think the string accompaniment is well thought through, and there is an understated confidence in the direction of the track - again a big melody sits at the centre of the song, and the musical arrangements built around this theme. Take a listen here:
This is an interesting project and I really hope that Matterhorn have more musical ideas they can share with us over the next 12 months. For more information you can find them at the following places: