Drudkh - Їм часто сниться капіж (They Often See Dreams About the Spring)

#FOR FANS OF: Post Black, Wolves in the Throne Room

Drudkh's first full-length album since 2015 shows a band shaking off the frost of an unforgiving winter with a fresh tumult that leaves trees shuddering and strings screaming, quaking the earth with a monstrous sound lurking high above the timbers and swaying in the winds. Moments of fury erupt from clay and rocks as each appendage of this Ukrainian quartet strives to elaborate on specifics in its style while maintaining its consistent overall quality in engaging atmosphere and mesmerizing cycling, a gigantic gallop of the forest's foremost advocate embodied in a titan of black metal artistry. A motif of decay and resurrection has been a mainstay of Drudkh's songwriting throughout its fifteen year career, best exemplified by sullen guitar passages that reach their solstices in hateful highs before returning to depressive drawling lows as they recycle and replant their roots. Yet it is in the blends and blotches that Drudkh finds its most uncorrupted cultivation, a dreamlike blur that seems improvisational but is actually a carefully approximated sound, something where a contributing moment may seem muddled and misshapen but applies itself as a perceptibly necessary attribute into the larger scheme.

Near the second half of “У дахів іржавім колоссю... (U Dakhiv Irzhavim Kolossyu…)”, the drums kick up with a tantalizing blast beat as a backdrop of heaving guitar trills to the tone of a lonesome bird calling out for a companion. The lead sawing across the top shreds bark and sinew with the dull patter of a distant woodpecker following such violence. Blast beating comes with the frequency of clouds during a blustery summer day, the wind high in the atmosphere as shade darkens the sun and quickly passes by to bring back Sol's full intensity. Such captivating landscapes are painted in meditative and calculated brushstrokes, as though the mixtures of colors and blending definition of impressionist painting is lent its own audible backdrop, a prominence in this gallery of sound delightfully shown in the final pieces on the album. “За зорею, що стрілою сяє (Za Zoreyu Scho Striloyu Syaye…)” blows winds of a familiar anthem, the crisp air of autumn reprising its role in contrast to spring, conjuring the swift streaks of oranges and yellows in Monet's “San Giorgio Maggiore at Dusk” in order to share in the theme of 'The Swan Road' or 'Autumn Aurora'. “Білявий день втомився і притих (Bilyavyi Den’ Vtomyvsya I prytykh… )” brings a signature scramble to its precipice with sawing guitars, shrilly screaming through banks of foggy distortion and blending, calling out through the morning mist in primitive mention of Monet's “Impression, Sunrise” to raise a fresh levy of barbarian warriors, echoing goodbyes across placid waters walled in by rising rocky cliffs. The quiet melody of the lead guitar longingly mires its melancholy footing in the sopping mud of a springtime low tide. As the boat disappears in the distance the sun begins to burn off the fog, opening the cloistered world to the beauty of expanse, the allure of adventure, and the hope of a successful raid and lucrative future.

'Їм часто сниться капіж (They Often See Dreams About the Spring)' is Drudkh elaborating in all the right places while sticking to its tried and true formula. The heady atmosphere blending blotches of noisy notation, imposing and transfixed on the spirit of nature, can find itself falling into the background of the mind at times, but always returns to a path that fiercely draws attention to itself in the right moments. Giving sound to an already muddled style that captures the eye when closed and the mind when dreaming, Drudkh has always maintained a soft spot for impressionist art, providing tangible texture throughout its lower fidelity career. With the cleanliness of its production throughout this latest foray into a stand-alone full-length, the band has smoothed out its canvas while providing a more vibrant color palette for its digitized display. (Five_Nails)

 

(Season of Mist - 2018)
Score: 75

https://drudkh.bandcamp.com/album/they-often-see-dreams-about-the-spring

Drudkh/Paysage d'Hiver - Somewhere Sadness Wanders/Schnee IV

#FOR FANS OF: Atmospheric Black

Shadows lengthen earlier each day as changing leaves and gradually falling temperatures accompany the arrival of another Drudkh split to sate an autumnal appetite. This year the Kharkiv crew has chosen to collaborate with Paysage d'Hiver, a Swiss bedroom black metal band whose French name translates to 'Winter Landscape'. As Drudkh continues to discover new open spaces ensconced within the confines of dense forests, Paysage d'Hiver is swept up in the gusts of a dark and stormy night as Tobias Möckl, under the pseudonym Wintherr, fruitlessly searches for shelter in the relentless cavalcade of chaos.

Drudkh's contributions in “All Shades of Silence” and “The Night Walks Towards Her Throne” bring the stellar consistency expected from this Ukrainian black metal mainstay. Through Drudkh's twenty-one minutes in the spotlight stand tireless thicket sentries at the edge of the woods while waves of blaring melodies purify the lands within of the faint of heart. After wandering overgrown trails with intricate and labyrinthine harmonies, “All Shades of Silence” finds solace in a clandestine grotto watching night fall as the stars wink over the trickles of little waterfalls. These quiet introspective moments remind one of melancholic memories while the little escape becomes a prison of past regrets. As day returns the air becomes exasperated and ominous while the whirling harmonies quit their quiet getaway, refreshed and ready for another ambling adventure.

“The Night Walks Towards Her Throne” has the classic intensely hammering Drudkh tone reminiscent of those days when 'Forgotten Legends' and 'Autumn Aurora' rolled their lengthy repetitious rounds behind quick guitar slices and scattered shrill sound waves against garage walls. The professional production quality greatly enhances the impact of this song with prominent double bass kicking and enough distance between the distorted guitars to escape the black metal blend and soar across the gorgeous vista created by its second progression. A wail of guitars is joined by blast beating as it clambers into a whirl of drawn out vocals in a gorgeous turn of the eternal treble wheel. This reverberating harmony encapsulates the infusion of reverential folk tones into the sharp soundscape of black metal in a gorgeous cycle that longs to last an aeon. Drudkh is a band that never fails to impress and throughout these hypnotizing songs comes the foreboding knuckle-cracking chill that signals another adieu to warming sun and green grass.

Swelling in a breathy fashion bookended by quiet acoustic guitars and heaving winds, Paysage d'Hiver summons a blizzard of intensity where waves of distortion ebb and flow as the foreground is held up by sharp snaps of a snare center. Wailing lead guitar melodiously howls at the confining rhythm guitar and vocals give a gravely scream behind the higher leads in “Schnee IV”. Typifying the dreary, exhausting, and forlorn hope of an inescapable structure, Wintherr seeks inspiration from the likes of Darkthrone and Burzum to conjure this tempest. The guitars are winds of chaos with whispers of melody hidden in the maelstrom through seven minutes of a single structure before a riff change from the lead guitar attempts to scream its way out of the whirl of degradation. The crisp hail of mechanical drumming sets a stoic standard and inundates the air with flurries of momentary fills between hypnotic passages, compounding on each other and engulfing the landscape in this ferocious blizzard.

Drudkh's delicate autumnal passages beautifully flow into the harsh scarcity of Wintherr's savage storm creating a complimentary split that delightfully accompanies the atmosphere of this most precious time of year. With Drudkh's prolific discography and Paysage d'Hiver's experience, this professional presentation is keen to highlight the drastic changes endured throughout these unforgiving seasons. (Five_ Nails)

(Season of Mist - 2017)
Score: 80

https://drudkh.bandcamp.com/album/somewhere-sadness-wanders

Drudkh/Grift - Betrayed by the Sun/Hägringar

#FOR FANS OF: Black/Epic, Agalloch

Metal is a vast, versatile, and global subculture of musicians and fans with enclaves, scenes, and subgroups hidden under nearly every culture's surface. This style of music, while abrasive, is a strong and touching medium where composers impart a vast array of emotions on each listener in increasingly inventive ways. As with any subjective form of art, each listener may glean his own meaning from the music, its imagery, and the outlook on the world that has birthed it. However, metal sets itself apart as a most precious style to its followers where fandom and fanaticism seem one and the same. Albeit precocious to outsiders, many metal fans don't just tune in through a phase in their lives. The music becomes internalized as a consistent catharsis in listeners lives. Bands like Drudkh play a very intimate version of such an audacious sub-genre as black metal heralding a deep divide between fans who don't see this band as true enough for them and fans who admire a humbler rumble that, despite its calmer demeanor, will still evoke a strong reaction. While Drudkh is a well-established black metal act that breaks the mold with its more positive and less percussive sound, Grift plays a lament closer to the heart that denotes a derided desperation in the mind's weaved wilderness.

Ukraine's stalwart black metal band, Drudkh has brought another EP out of the forest and in true form has given fire to lamenting riffs rather than cowing to despair. “His Twenty-Fourth Spring” walks you through the curves of a woodsy road into an open meadow bristling with spring flowers and grass as the clouds clear and the crisp air thickens with the bird songs and pollen of a new year. Layered with a cold lead guitar leaving a bite in the atmosphere, hot drums warming the soil, and a rhythm guitar that keeps the peace between them both, each progression brings new life into the song as the pacing shakes off the chains of winter and stretches itself out to embrace a world renewed. In response to the rebirth of “His Twenty-Fourth Spring” is “Autumn in Sepia”, a furious denial of the coming winter that refuses to be pummeled by the changing of the winds without pummeling back. The change in tone is deeply apparent as spring comes with ease and its arrival is relished while autumn's melancholy is met by preparation. The guitars launch themselves at the drums and vocals creating a blistering cacophony that burns itself against the coming cold. Autumn is far more focused and driven to survive the oncoming winter while spring was laid back and enjoying its time in the sun. Drudkh tells a timeless story in these songs signaling the producing and parting periods that the temperate zone is known for and the effect the climate has on its inhabitants.

Desperately crying for relief, Swedish one-man band Grift begs to be heard across the expanse that Eric Gardenfors' music creates, exacerbated by furious notes only to denote the anguish of this isolation. “The Source” yearns to be found by hopeless dreamers who have nothing left to give but need an outlet from this crippling melancholy melody. “The Source” drives this hopelessness home by guiding you from that destructive depression into a drowning defile of bitterness, one that Gardenfors describes with malice in lyrics that offer a scathing cross examination as the protagonist is prosecuted. Where Drudkh brought you sun, Grift brings rain and heartache, tempering anguish on a simmering scale of drum rhythm while the boisterous beauty of its music accentuates anguish and drives dread into your hankering heart. Sol gives you no heat in these cycles. Instead it is as lacking in drive as your own thoughts create mirages of doubt when indulging in foregone failures and wrests the hope from your hapless hands. The cycle is complete as you break down into the bottle again, beauty and misery forged into the melancholy that Grift called “The Circle”. Where Drudkh brought heat and harmony, Grift gave frigid anguish and doubt. These sets of songs compliment each other well in their juxtaposition. (Five_Nails)

(Season of Mist - 2016)
Voto: 80

https://drudkh.bandcamp.com/album/betrayed-by-the-sun-h-gringar