HÉR stream debut album Monochrome via Season of Mist!

Formed in Gdańsk, northern Poland, HÉR present Monochrome, their debut full-length album for Season of Mist, now streaming in its entirety on the label’s official YouTube channel.

Rooted in Old Norse wisdom poetry and shaped by a collective sense of ritual, the record invites listeners to step into a space of presence and communion, where music functions as both invocation and reflection.

Monochrome unfolds across seven compositions that balance restraint and intensity. Throat singing, bowed strings, percussion, and subtle electronics intertwine to form a sound that feels both ancient and immediate. Experienced as a continuous listening journey, the album opens with the meditative expanse of “Chant,” before moving through the patience and introspection of “Patience in Observation,” the grounded momentum of “Going Down,” and the fervent, almost hymn-like force of “Praise the Day.”

Recorded at Monochrom Studio with producer Ignacy Gruszecki and mixed and mastered by Marcin Bors at Fonoplastykon, Monochrome prioritizes clarity and physical presence. Guest vocals from Magdalena Kuraś “Freya” add a contrasting timbre, while artwork by Mary Zaleska mirrors the album’s elemental atmosphere. Drawing from both Slavic melodic traditions and Scandinavian sonic landscapes, the album explores enduring dualities of fire and frost, calm and force, individuality and collective experience.

Monochrome is out tomorrow, January 30, 2026 via Season of Mist.

“Hér” in Icelandic means „here”. It is a very clear calling from the band to the audience: be here, experience, be inspired, it is happening now, and it is the essence of participating in our artistic expression. The bad was formed in Gdańsk, northern Poland. Five independent, strong musical personalities met “here”—in a specific place and time—to create communitas that are both unique and harmonious.

The music they propose carries the listener to 11th-century Old Norse wisdom poetry. The first inspiration for this artistic meeting were the poems of the Poetic Edda. Hér reveals wild, root-like, undiscovered musical spaces, the clash of worlds, and a glimpse of the otherworld. It uses raw means of expression and sounds, as raw as the North itself: trembling throat singing, increasing trance-like rhythm, gliding over the violin strings like over an ice surface. We start here: Iceland, the beginning of Europe. It is a musical meditation on a place, growing out of specific soil, reaching to the roots of Norse mythology but not stopping there. It is not only the wisdom of the Vikings, Odin’s recommendations for those who stand at the gates of Valhalla. The threshold of the otherworld leads further to universal, human, fundamental experiences.

By exploring the human nature described in Norse mythology, the musicians make a deep insight into the emotions embedded in its verses. They bring out the dark beauty of the North and its extremes: fire and ice, violence and tenderness, bravery and care, the brutality of war and the solace that peace brings, struggle and feast, the milky sweetness of honey and the salty tang of blood, love and hatred, birth and death, beginning and end, terror and awe…

Sestu hérna, sit here… sit here and listen, sit here and grow, sit here and drift away.

Stream / Buy / Download the album on Bandcamp

Line-up:
Maciej Świniarski — Vocal, Percussion
Tomasz Chyła — Vocal, Violin, Synth Percussion
Piotr Chęcki — Saxophone, Percussion
Tomasz Sadecki — Bass Guitar, Synth, Percussion
Sławek Koryzno — Drums, Percussion

Production Credits:
Recorded at Monochrom Studio, Gniewoszów, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, Poland.
Produced & Engineered by Ignacy Gruszecki.
Mixed & Mastered by Marcin Bors at Fonoplastykon, Wrocław, Poland.

Guest Musicians:
Magdalena Kuraś „Freya”

Cover Art:
Mary Zaleska

Photography:
Daria Szczygieł (https://dariaszczygiel.com/)

Follow HÉR:

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Thank you very much Season of Mist

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