My favourite album - "Wildhoney", Tiamat 1994

A recent text written by Mihai Coro Caraveţeanu inspired me to write about my favourite album. Particularly because it is the same: „Wildhoney”, Tiamat 1994.

My story begins somehow in the same way as his, when it comes to pretences and underground: I heard however about Pink Floyd and I listened to their songs, but I didn’t explore by far their entire universe. I thought also that I listened to better music than others, but I couldn’t know too many back then. Until I discovered the same tape, a pirated edition too (the original ones were almost unavailable in my country back then), in the house of my partner, who at that time was just my co-worker. My treasure had already notable “neighbours”: Anathema, Morbid Angel, Obituary, Megadeth, Judas Priest, Manowar, Nirvana or Metallica. And Altar too.

I enjoyed listening to many of the bands in that magic box, but when it came to „Wildhoney” it was love at first sight - at the first listening, to be more precise. It followed then a long period of addiction. I went to sleep and I woke up on „Wildhoney”, I could listen to it for hours without getting bored, and I was doing that „again and again”.

As for the title of the album, I always put the emphasis on „wild” rather than on „honey”, that’s why perhaps it had a different meaning for me - I never felt that it was just a catchy title for a certain category of listeners. In other words, the symbols are always different than what they represent. I was always concerned about the lyrics and, beyond the personal experiences of the lyricist, I tried to decipher philosophies, concepts, notions and ideas. Or, to paraphrase their lyrics, I wanted “to search the answers to every «why»”. And with every song, with every album, I opened more and more doors of perception.

“Wildhoney” carried me from the beginning through a visionary world. Because it is for me not just an album, but pure inspiration - I thought the first time I listened to it. Twenty years are passed, but I can still perceive more features, deeper meanings, infinite nuances and interpretations. It’s an album that can be listened to and simultaneously contemplated in its immeasurable completeness.

If I’d have to choose just an album for a lifetime, then I’d have to have - just as the cats - seven lives, or nine, or more. “Wildhoney” is certainly one of the albums of my lifetime(s) - of this one, or (at least) of a previous one.