Wildhoney
Occupation
- Vocal / Guitar: Johan Edlund
- Bass: Johnny Hagel
- Guitar Magnus Sahlgren
- Drums: Lars Sköld
- Vocals: Birgit Zacher
Wild Honey is the fourth studio album by the Swedish gothic metal band Tiamat. It was published on 1 September 1994 through Century Media.
Formation
After the release of the previous album, the band Clouds of a quintet shrank to a duet. The singer and guitarist Johan Edlund and bassist Johnny Hagel worked together on the new songs. The musicians were heavily influenced by the psychedelic and progressive rock bands like Pink Floyd and King Crimson.
The recordings took place in the Woodhouse Studios in Hagen in July 1994. Before the recording session, the musicians had the new material deliberately not completed in order to still experimenting as much as possible can. Edlund said in an interview that the musicians did not know before the recordings for yourself how the album would sound like in the end.
It was produced and mixed by Waldemar Sorychta Wild Honey. As a studio musician worked with the guitarist Magnus Sahlgren and drummer Lars Sköld. All keyboards played Waldemar Sorychta one. As a guest singer Birgit Zacher is heard. The mastering took Klaus "DMS" Hayes. The album cover was designed by Kristian Wåhlin. For the songs Whatever did Hurts and Gaia music videos were filmed.
Background
In Whatever Hurts Johan Edlund did processed his experiences with hallucinogenic drugs. The text of the Common thorn apple ( one of the English common name of the plant mentioned in the lyrics Jimsonweed, ) and the fungal genus Psilocybe be called. Also of drugs is the final song A Pocket Size Sun, whose lyrics are about LSD. The song Ar refers to the pentagram as a symbol that represents the people. The title is a short form of "The sign of the Aryan race."
" It is the old name for the pentagram as a symbol of the people, and for me it is both for good and for evil in each. [ ... ] It has nothing to do with politics and fascism, but refers to something that is 5000 years old. "
Gaia is the earth personified in Greek mythology. Edlund wrote with Gaia for the first time a socially critical text, in which he animal experiments and the deforestation of the rain forests criticized, for example. Visionaire deals with the topic of Satanism, while Edlund Do You Dream of Me devoted his then-girlfriend.
Each of the ten tracks is represented by a picture in the booklet. For Edlund traveled to find a friend to Gothenburg to matching motifs in advance of publication. The ten tracks on the album go directly into one another. The only interruption takes place between songs Gaia and Visionaire in order to change the cassette or LP version of the page can.
Reception
The German magazine Metal Hammer has named Wild Honey "Album of the Month". Robert Mueller described the album as " total work of art " which " allocates about mood and feelings and below makes music." Wild Honey is an album that " the listener like a warm coat wrapped and whispers in the dreams ." Müller awarded the maximum score of seven points and wrote that he had the highest score meant never more serious than this time. Jan Müller from the online magazine Metal1.info described the album as a work that should be in every metal collection. Only the fact that the album consists of only seven songs, and some instrumental interludes, prevented the highest grade, so Müller awarded 9.5 out of ten. According to Peter Kubaschk from the online magazine Powermetal.de Tiamat succeeded " at 42 minutes, the perfect balance between high artistic standards, a warm atmosphere, goosebumps fragile melodies and gloom ".
In the book, Best of Rock & Metal of the German Rock-Hard - magazine in which in the opinion of Rock-Hard - editing 500 most metal and hard rock albums of all time lists, finished Wild Honey Place 208 Wolfgang Schäfer designated Wild Honey as a " groundbreaking album, which is an important pillar in terms of location determination not only of the band, but also a whole scene." Wild Honey reached number 29 in the German album charts.