There are many sources from which bands in extreme derive their names. Greek gods, characters from the classics and biblical demons all seem fair game. Spain’s Hordak, however, took their name from Skeletor’s former mentor in the children’s cartoon ‘He-Man and the Masters of the Universe’. Although such a name would normally imply an ironic tongue-in-cheek approach to their music, this is not the direction Hordak are coming from.
Released in 2006, Hordak’s second album ‘The Last European Wolves’ was placed in the Pagan Black Metal camp, but in truth this label doesn’t really fully describe the music on offer. The band themselves describe their music as ‘Celtiberian Pagan Metal’, the Celtiberians being a race of people formed after Celts from Gaul settled in Iberia- now Spain and Portugal. This is a much more accurate description, with ‘The Last European Wolves’ being the South-West European equivalent of Scandinavia’s Viking Metal.
Although ‘….Wolves’ had Black Metal influences, these were quite minimal with the main emphasis being on the Celtic elements. With folk and Pagan metal rising to prominence in recent years, Hordak made roads to forge their own niche within the genre, creating an album which incorporated varied moods and directions. Power metal and melodic Death Metal riffs competed under Black Metal vocals, accompanied by traditional Celtic / Folk instrumentation and punctuated by light and airy acoustic passages to create an album which musically and lyrically paid homage to its ancestral roots.
At the time of writing there is no indication of whether a third album is on the way, but if the high standard of ‘….Wolves’ is anything to go by, Hordak are definitely a band to keep an eye on in the future.
