I must say, innovativeness has gone to hell. In the early 90’s metal was repetitive and boring. But lo and behold, bands started mixing styles together to create “new” genres. Frankly, rarely have combined genres produced a truly unique sound. I hate to say it, but labels like doom/death, black/death, prog/doom, symphonic/black are just buzzwords that don’t really mean anything. Few bands actually broke ground by successfully combing genres. I’m happy to say HORTUS ANIMAE is one of those bands. Their sound is truly refreshing. Whenever I listen to the music I picture medieval jesters in colorful clothing dancing around a dead body in a orange-tinted dungeon. It’s quite eerie. The symphonic elements are the key elements in achieving this, along with Bless’s amazing keyboards. I have never heard any black metal band use keyboards so effectively. They’re not used only to back up guitar riffs either. Bless makes his own melodies that stand out, especially on Springtime Deaths, the album’s best song.
The talent doesn’t stop there though. The thing that stands out most in Waltzing Mephisto is the drumming, performed by GroM, who is, undoubtedly, Italy’s finest drummer. What surprised me most is how he could play so ferociously in the slow and light instrumental A Feeble Light Of Hope and not disturb the tranquility of the music. His style has so much variety; it encompasses every genre of drumming imaginable.
And then comes the music. As I said before, it’s something quite original. You never know what to expect, and that’s partly because you probably have never heard anything like this before. The melodies HORTUS ANIMAE spin are an act of sheer brilliance. The album doesn’t lack in any aspect whatsoever. Production is good enough to listen to, yet bad enough to create a dark, occult feeling. The vocals pierce the ears and change from screams to brutal death vocals in an instant. And above that, HORTUS ANIMAE manages to cover three classics (Freezing Moon by Mayhem, Terzo Incontro by Il Balletto di Bronzo, and Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield), mix them into one song, and stay true to the originals. This is the finest album of 2003 so far, and I’ll be damned if it’ll be beaten.

Synopsis
Untitled Intro – N/A
Enter – 95%
A Hidden Osbcurity (Part I and II) – 99%
Springtime Deaths - 100%
Souls of the Cold Wind – 94%
Welcome the Godless – 86%
Freezing Moon including Terzo Incontro and Tubular Bells – 100%
A Feeble Light of Hope - 100%
Album – 97%

Hortus Animae