Archive for July 1, 2024

An ear-raping but also somewhat endearing early effort from Graveland. This particular demo is considered a classic because… reasons? I guess it’s cool to hear Graveland in its infancy but there’s some shaky shit here, specifically in the drumming department. One for the true black metal cultists only, I’d say.

Bursting forth like the Impaler himself setting upon your village to uhh, slay your men and uhh, impregnate your women, this two track EP wasted no time in cutting to the fucking chase. Considering the songs are 10/12 minuters, there is no better “quick fix” in regards to the meandering, hypnotic, repetitive works of Darken’s Graveland. If you don’t mind the fact that this is once again recycled material (Graveland are like the Agathocles of…

I’ve yet to hear a bad Drudkh release but the band loses me a bit on this one. There seems to be an abundance of proggy elements at the forefront of the compositions, whilst the hypnotic wall-of-guitar approach takes something of a little side step. The best example of this is the excellent bass work in “Далекий крик журавлів (Distant Cries of Cranes)”. It’s not a complaint per se, and it’s all excellently played, but…

I don’t even know how to put this shit into words, which isn’t great for someone who spends so much of their time listening to and briefly reviewing music. But I guess Drudkh has a whole “if you know, you know” thing going on: once it clicks, it clicks. Truly, this is beautiful, hypnotising black metal. I’ve only heard it a handful of times and I am already completely in love with it.

I initially didn’t like Hour Of Ragnarok. I found the overall sound to be a bit weirdly “modern” for Graveland, but over the last few weeks it has really grown on me. Until I became familiar with the individual songs, I could have sworn to you that this thing loops over. This is because of the no doubt intentional over-usage of a certain violin / cello style keyboard patch file (I don’t think it’s a…

I genuinely do not understand the hype around Akhlys. This is some overproduced, overcompressed, lost in the reeds kinda shit. What does Akhlys actually sound like? Because their music has been massaged so much by this smothering blanket of a production job I still feel like I have no idea. This album sounds like it’s been generated by AI. Dreadful shit.