Album Review: Hate Forest - "Scythia"

Artist: Hate Forest (Ukraine)
Album Title: Scythia
Record Label: Supernal Music (United Kingdom)
Released: 1999 (original) / 2004 (Supernal reissue)

Buying demos reissued on CD can be a risky proposition if you haven't heard the actual music before purchasing. This is why I initially steered clear of Hate Forest's first demo, Scythia. Would it contain little more than half-baked ideas, terrible production, and sloppy musicianship? In this case, the answer is certainly "no." This may be Hate Forest from 1998-1999, a few years before they arguably hit their creative peak (in this band) with Purity and Battlefields, but even at this relatively early state they put many well-established bands to shame with their aggressive and raw brand of Slavonic black metal.

Those who are familiar with their more popular works but haven't heard Scythia may barely recognize the band. In fact, the overall cold atmosphere and hyperactive drum machine are the only major similarities I can find between Scythia and an album like Purity. Roman Saenko and Thurios had not yet adopted the drone-y, hypnotic sound that would become the most recognizable element of their aesthetic. Instead, what we have here is fairly standard raw black metal --though that's not to say it's not well-done, just that they were still at an early stage of their evolution-- along with a couple of short dark ambient pieces. Roman Saenko appears to handle all the vocals on the Scythia demo, and his deep growls are electronically distorted to sound pretty demonic or beastly. This is the only Hate Forest release I'm aware of that uses this distortion, and it gives it a more menacing sound as a result. The higher-pitched growls of Thurios are nowhere to be heard, except on the bonus track.

Scythia is a well-produced and surprisingly focused and accomplished demo, but it's also kind of short, at 25 minutes long. Thankfully, they threw in a great bonus, the 11-minute "To Those Who Came Before Us." This song, recorded in 2002, is much more easily recognizable as a Hate Forest track, as it sounds as if it could have been taken right off of Purity. It is quite possibly my favorite Hate Forest song ever; a long, droning epic of a track with some great guitar lines and vocals from both Roman Saenko and Thurios. The last four minutes of the song are pure melancholic beauty.

I'm sure many Hate Forest fans have probably already heard this release, but any who haven't should hunt down this CD. Drudkh fans who want to hear how it all began may find this to be the best starting place. Just about any Hate Forest release is worth your time (the awful EP The Gates and the bland full-length Sorrow may be the only exceptions) and may help you better appreciate the creative progression that led to the creation of Drudkh.

Drudkh is great, but Hate Forest shouldn't be overlooked.

Album Review: Kamaedzitca - Пяруне

Artist: Kamaedzitca (Belarus)
Album Title: Пяруне (Pyarune)
Record Label: Strong Music (Belarus)
Released: 2008 (March)

Belarus is another one of those beautiful Eastern European countries that I will probably never get to see with my own eyes, yet I can appreciate some of its beauty through the influence it has on the pagan metal bands it inspires. Unfortunately, there don't seem to be a lot of metal bands in Belarus. While Ukraine, Poland, and especially Russia seem to be bursting at the seams with pagan/folk metal bands, their neighbor has only managed to produce a handful, at least that are known to me. The first of these with which I became familiar is Kamaedzitca, from the capital city of Minsk. Their 2004 debut CD, Дзецi лесу, was a very decent pagan metal album that mixes folk with a style of metal that is close to death metal, though it contains clean vocals in addition to the deep growls. Kamaedzitca seemed to disappear for the next few years, leaving many of us to wonder if they'd gone the way of so many pagan metal bands that release a promising, obscure debut and then fade away completely.

Then, almost out of nowhere, their sophmore full-length Пяруне appeared, though it has only managed to trickle into U.S. distros within the last few months. Fortunately, the band has not only managed to not disappear, they have returned stronger than before, with an album that might not reach the lofty heights of the latest Arkona or Moonsorrow releases but is worth looking into for fans of this genre.

Let's get the bad out of the way first. The intro and outro to this album are both very boring. There may be some purpose to beginning the album with the world's most minimalistic 3-minute flute solo and ending with an equally uninspired drum solo (mercifully only 1 1/2 minutes), but to these ears it just makes the first and last moments of the album crawl by. In all, 6 tracks out of the 14 are either instrumentals or atmospheric pieces rather than songs, so we're left with 8 actual songs, and they range from between 2:41 to just under 6 minutes each. Not a whole lot of music here, but certainly enough to chew on.

After the unfortunate opening flute solo, the first actual song on the CD, Колазварот (which I'm 99% sure is the Belarusian word for "sunwheel"), kicks off promisingly, sounding like classic Kamaedzitca but with a hefty dose of Estonian greats Metsatöll in the mix. Clean vocals and folk instruments abound on this album, making it sound much more varied and colorful than the debut album. But fans of the crunchy guitars and growls of Дзецi лесу should not fret, as they have not done away with that part of their sound. Variety is the name of the game here; from one song to the next, the atmosphere and dynamics change. There are very folky and celebratory-sounding tracks like Як на горцы ля ракі…, and then very aggressive songs like Волi герояў подых бязмежнасцi, which immediately follows it. The former track contains mostly clean vocals, while the latter track contains death metal growls. You've also got У вякi вякоў!, with its RAC-ish shouts of "Slava!" and its fast rhythm, and the acoustic track Блуканне ведагоны. The most beautiful song on the album is the mostly-instrumental Водар забыцця, which features a beautiful flute solo and an even more beautiful, mournful guitar solo, along with some nice clean vocals towards the end.

Production can be hit-or-miss with obscure pagan metal bands from former Soviet republics, but fortunately this is not the case with Пяруне. The sound is full and has plenty of punch, and the instruments are all well-recorded. This is as good a production job as I have heard on a pagan metal album, I think. The players are all great, especially considering the variety in playing and singing styles needed. I'm very impressed with the drumming of Viedyaslav Liha; it's a shame that he has since parted ways with the band. Folk musical instruments like flute and bagpipes are well-played and recorded.

I think that some listeners will feel that Пяруне is lacking in content and contains too much filler, but I think most of the interludes are appropriate and set a deliberate pace for the album. I do wish that there were more songs, or that some of the songs were longer, but what is here is very, very good. Because the album is so eclectic, you don't ever really have time to get tired of a certain style before they've moved onto another one.

Fans of folky but serious pagan metal bands such as the great Arkona or Temnozor will probably enjoy Пяруне. Kamaedzitca has a unique enough sound that it would be difficult to confuse them with any other band in the scene. Those who are familiar with the band's debut but didn't enjoy it enough to check out Пяруне should give this new album a chance, as the band has definitely matured and improved since their already promising first album. I remember thinking after I bought Дзецi лесу that the band had potential to become one of the better bands in the scene, given a little more experience, and, indeed, Пяруне confirms my suspicion. It's definitely worth checking out for fans of Slavic pagan metal, and it stands comfortably among the better pagan metal releases of 2008.

Album Review: Panychida - "Paganized"

Artist: Panychida (Czech Republic)
Album Title: Paganized
Record Label: Folter Records (Germany)
Released: 2007

The problem with putting together a "Best Albums of the Year" list is that I'm always finding great releases from previous years that make me want to modify my list on a constant basis. After publishing my 2007 list on the Myspace for my solo music project, I kept discovering great albums that I had not even known existed at the time. One of those is the debut album by Czech band Panychida, signed to Folter Records. Folter is the label that releases Skyforger's music (except when licensed by other labels), so I mainly bought this album because of that fact. I wasn't sure what to think based on the few samples I heard, but fortunately this would turn out to be a very good purchase.

This West Bohemian band calls their music "paganized" metal. I don't know exactly what "paganized" metal is, whether it's black metal with pagan elements, or what, but, lyrically, Panychida seems to be influenced by both fantasy and Slavonic Paganism. Most of the lyrics, except for the final track, are in English, and they're very creative, though I have no idea what most of them are talking about. Musically, Panychida sounds like a mix of black metal, thrash, and maybe a little traditional heavy metal mixed in. A guest musician plays bagpipes, which sounds great, but I wouldn't say that the addition of bagpipes moves the band quite into "folk metal" territory. The cold, croaking vocals remind me quite a bit of Abbath from Immortal, which means they sound vaguely like Popeye the Sailor. I dig vocalist GHM's accent, though, and he seems to have a good grasp of the English language, which is never a guarantee when you're dealing with music from non-English-speaking countries [Edit: ...or even English-speaking countries, as our language has been butchered in modern times].

The rest of the band sounds good as well. You can even hear the bass sometimes! In their live shows, Panychida seems to rely on a drum machine, but on this album the drums were played by guest musician Honza Kapák, who also helped with the recording. I wish they could recruit this guy full-time, because he does a great job on the drums, and even plays a little hand percussion in "Final Donation to the Oath." Guest Helca Petrakova, who plays the bagpipes and flute, also does a great job. The bagpipes sound to me like Scottish Highland bagpipes without the drones, rather than the thinner-sounding bagpipes I normally hear in this kind of music. I suspect that the bagpipes played here are the traditional Bohemian bagpipes, the "Dudy," but the credits do not specify so I don't know for sure. It gives the music a bit of a Scottish-sounding flavor to these untrained ears, like the bagpipes used on Suidakra's Caledonia. The traditional instruments are not over-used on the album, and they don't detract from the thrashy black metal nature of the music.

I can't really think of any negatives about this album. I'm not sure how much depth Paganized has, but it has a fun atmosphere and makes for a very enjoyable listening experience. This is an album I like to play in the car, as it sounds great in my stereo system and is nice to drive to. I don't really know what that is supposed to mean, but I felt I should mention it anyway. Fans of pagan metal should certainly listen to some samples from the album, as Paganized is a really solid and enjoyable album from beginning to end, and perhaps is one of the great overlooked gems from 2007. Don't let the dull artwork deter you from checking it out.

Maxi-Single Review: Tumulus - "Кочевонов Пляс"

Artist: Tumulus (Russia)
Album Title: Кочевонов Пляс
Label: Wroth Emitter (Russia)
Released: 2008

Progressive folk metal band Tumulus was formed out of the ashes of Scald, the cult, Viking-themed epic doom metal band that sadly ended with the death of vocalist Agyl in 1997. Rather than continue the band without him, the band was re-formed as Tumulus and began a change in musical and lyrical direction. Since then, the band has released a few demos, two great full-length albums, and a live album that is actually worth listening to (I'm not generally a fan of live albums). After the release of the live album, the band was quiet for a while, working on the much-delayed maxi-single "Kochevonov Plyas," which was finally released earlier this year.

To be honest, this isn't much new material considering how long we've been waiting. The centerpiece of this EP is the new single "Kochevonov Plyas," which is preceded by an instrumental introduction. Then, following the single, they include a lovely traditional song --the title of which translates into "As There Was A Morning Early"--, a cover of black metal band Korozy (which appeared in live form on their Live Balkan Path release) called "Within the Soul of Autumn," and a new version of "Tam, gde zhili sviristeli" from their 2004 album Winter Wood. That's five tracks at about 23 minutes. It also includes a video of "Yavir," one of my favorite songs from Winter Wood. However, the new material here is of high quality and Tumulus fans should definitely check it out.

The first thing I noticed is that Yulia "Vigdis" Korolyova is no longer playing keyboards for the band. She has been replaced by keyboard- and balalaika player Al'virius. The rest of the band --vocalist and flute- and tambourine player Kuchma, guitarist Kurbat, bass player Velingor, and drummer Ottar-- remains the same as on the last few releases, and their experience playing together has resulted in a tight sound. The band sounds so good that I really wish this were a full-length album. The title track is absolutely brilliant, one of the very best Tumulus songs yet. The sound of balalaika, vargan (Jew's harp), and violin can be heard on this song, as well as multiple sets of vocals at one point in the track. Does Kuchma need any help with vocals? Of course not. He sounds awesome as usual on this release. However, the extra vocals sound great. I'm not sure who does them, as the credits are not clear.

The third track, "As There Was A Morning Early," is, as I said before, a lovely traditional song arranged by the band. I don't think Kuchma does the male vocals on this. It may be Eugeny Vorobyov from fellow Russian folk metal band Smuta. The female vocals are by former keyboard player Vigdis, who does a fine job, though her voice is much quieter. It would be nice if there were six or seven more new tracks like this, but in this case Tumulus chose quality over quantity, I suppose. Hopefully they won't make us wait too long for a new album.

The last two tracks, "Within the Soul of Autumn" and "Tam, gde zhili sviristeli" should be familiar to Tumulus fans as they have both been recorded by the band before. I believe Velingor does the harsh vocals on "Within the Soul of Autumn," and Kuchma does a fine performance with the clean vocals, as he did in the live recording. The violin sounds very nice as well. "Tam, gde zhili sviristeli" is a classic Tumulus song, and while I'm not sure this version really adds anything to the song, it's still welcome to my ears.

Tumulus continues to be a great band, though they will not appeal to all pagan metal fans. Their progressive sound and "happy"-sounding folk melodies may cause some listeners to dismiss them, but they are really a fine band that should be given more attention. This is a short but sweet EP, and it makes me excited about what is yet to come from this folk metal band from Yaroslavl.

[Note: As a thoughtful bonus, my copy of the CD came with three 2008-2009 mini-calendars (the size of credit cards) with a full-color band photo on one side of each. I can't guarantee that your copy will have arrived with those intact, due to the common practice of CD's being distributed without cases to underground metal stores in order to save money on shipping, but I thought it was nice and worth mentioning.]

Album Review: Equilibrium - "Sagas"

Artist: Equilibrium (Germany)
Album Title: Sagas
Label: Nuclear Blast (Germany, USA)
Released: 2008 (June)

Hailing from the German state of Bavaria, Equilibrium has been around since 2001, when the band formed with the original intention to play a single show. Fortunately for us, they were encouraged by the positive reception to continue on, and so far have graced us with two great albums. Their debut, Turis Fratyr, was released in early 2005 on the German label Black Attakk, and gained them a pretty large fanbase considering the album became very difficult to find. I myself had to obtain it from Germany earlier this year, as an addition to my Menhir Hildebrandslied order. Appearances at festivals and such also helped spread the word about Equilibrium, and eventually that word reached the ears of large metal label Nuclear Blast, who signed the band to a contract and have exposed them to a much larger audience with the release of their sophmore album, Sagas.

Sagas is a huge album. In pretty much every possible way. Not only does it hover around the 80-minute mark (without any filler or unusual stretches of silence), but almost every one of those 80 minutes is very high on the intensity scale (somewhere between "epic" and "ridiculously epic," to be exact). They fly through the material, barely giving the listener time to catch his or her breath, and causing the 80 minutes to pass by quickly. Sagas consists of 13 tracks, including a brief instrumental somewhere in the middle, and a long (16 minute) instrumental closing out the album. Equilibrium's music can be described as extremely epic folk metal with lots of synths, German lyrics about Bavarian tales and such, and vocals that range from "black metal style" to "sort of death metal style." Despite the heavy use of synthesizers, the band's talent should not be overlooked, as these guys are quite good at what they do. You sometimes have to pay special attention in order to hear it past the soaring keyboard melodies and choir sounds, but there's a strong metal backbone behind the bombast.

Despite the fact that they are an extreme metal band with shrieking and growling vocals, Equilibrium doesn't try to sound menacing. Indeed, they're about as frightening as Gargamel from The Smurfs. The atmosphere of the album, instead, is one of adventure and fun. It's kind of difficult to be frowning while listening to Sagas. Grimacing, on the other hand, may be possible at times, depending on how you react to the some of the stranger moments on the album. Take, for example, the track "Unbesiegt," which sounds like it could have been a collaboration with "The Rhythm Is Gonna Get You"-era Gloria Estefan. I'm not sure what Latin percussion and jungle animal sounds have to do with European folk metal, but the song is actually pretty good once you get past that. Then there's the song "Snüffel," an ode to snuff (of course), which features ZZ Top riffs and, even weirder, the sound of an automobile engine roaring at one point in the track. These moments are signs that Equilibrium does not care about being taken completely seriously, and the lyrics and the overall playful atmosphere of Sagas supports this. Sure, because of this Equilibrium can't really be appreciated on the same level as more "serious" pagan metal bands such as Menhir, Moonsorrow, or Falkenbach, but, when you're in the mood for it, it's refreshing and very enjoyable.

Even if you can't get into "Unbesiegt" or "Snüffel" (you're not alone), there's still another 65-70 minutes of music on Sagas, and most of the tracks here are winners. There's a lot of very strong material on the album, and it's spread throughout the entire length of the CD. This isn't one of those albums that drops off in quality after the first few tracks. Even the long instrumental that closes the album, "Mana," is great. There are choirs, a violin, and even a panpipe on this final track, so even if (like me) you don't generally care for instrumentals, don't write this one off until you give it a chance.

Although Sagas is generally getting very positive reviews so far, it has its detractors. Many of its critics cite the saccharine-sweetness of many of the album's melodies and overall "uplifting" sound of the album (as well as its inherent folk-metalness) as critical failings of Sagas. I wouldn't necessarily recommend Sagas to those who feel that metal should always be menacing and dark. I would also imagine some pagan metal purists might dismiss it as major-label dilution and exploitation of the genre. Maybe that's true; I don't know. But I really enjoy Sagas; maybe not on the same level as I enjoy the latest Arkona or Moonsorrow albums, but, at least on a musical level, this is one of the strongest (and most fun) releases I've heard all year. Definitely give it a try.

Split CD Review: Чур / Опричь

Artists: Чур (Chur) [Ukraine] / Опричь (Oprich) [Russia]
Album Title: ...From the Ghostly Fog... / The Fireflower (Split)
Label: Stellar Winter Records (Russia)
Released: 2008

Ordinarily, I don't pay much attention to split albums, and I'm not really sure why that is. You're basically getting a couple of EP's on a single disc, so why do I so often avoid them? Part of the problem is that rarely have I heard a split where the two (or more) bands actually complement each others' music or sound like they have much in common thematically. A lot of times I'll enjoy one band and dislike the other, so when I do buy a split, it's often because I just want to obtain material from a band that I can't get on any of their other releases.

In this case, I am a pretty big fan of both bands involved, so purchasing this split CD was an easy decision to make. Chur impressed me quite a bit with his debut album, Brother Wind, which I discovered in early 2007 and bought basically because I thought the cover looked "folkish." It turned out to be one of my more pleasant surprises that year, a rather mature and focused debut CD, with great vocals and folk instrumentation.

However, I found his half of this split to be very disappointing. The two elements I enjoyed most about Brother Wind, the vocals and folk instruments, are nowhere to be found on these four tracks. Instead, we are given instrumental songs. Not that instrumental is necessarily bad (see early October Falls, Drudkh's Songs of Grief & Solitude, and most of Ulver's Kveldssanger for examples of this), but these aren't atmospheric acoustic songs or anything. They're mostly constructed of electric guitar and drum machine, and the overall feeling I got was that this was some guitarist's demo that he hands out to bands he's trying to join. There are words (lyrics?) printed in the booklet, which almost gives me the impression that either Chur ran out of time before he could record vocals, or that someone at Stellar Winter accidentally included unfinished demo versions of the songs on the CD. In all likelihood, however, this was intentional. And I'm sure Chur knows what he's doing, but after repeated listens I'm still not really digging it. It just sounds like instrumental metal, which is something I'm not interested in.

In the case of Oprich, I didn't really know what to expect. Their only previous release is a split with Kroda. That split is mostly notable because of Kroda's side, featuring the awesome two-part "Poppyfields Are Blossoming," but I feel that Oprich's contribution, the five-track mini-album Wolfen Loyalty, is an underrated and interesting bit of folk metal. It's certainly strange, especially the first two tracks, which is probably where many listeners gave up on it. The production is rough and inelegant, and certainly the overall sound is an acquired taste, but it grew on me after a while.

Oprich is perhaps better known (and respected, if by proxy) because of the band Vo Skorbyah, a project that mostly consists of Oprich members. Vo Skorbyah garnered strong reviews and a fair bit of attention from fans of underground metal after its self-titled debut CD was released last year, and it seems its success convinced the folks involved to keep the project going, despite their original intention for it to be a one-off.

I'm happy to report that Oprich's side of this split fares quite well. The band is still "quirky," and some listeners will probably still dislike them, but their four tracks are a definite improvement over Wolfen Loyalty, in my opinion. The production is much cleaner and the band sounds much more confident and mature this time around. The harsh vocals from Wolfen Loyalty have disappeared, yet there are still multiple sets of vocals to be heard. Vocalist Zhdana and violinist Vasilisa seem to be nowhere to be found, and the former is replaced on this release by two (session?) female vocalists, Nina and Maria. Yaromir, Rodoslav, and the now-departed Bersen tackle the rest of the vocals. Having five different vocalists on a four-song mini-album lends their half a lot of variety, perhaps at the expense of cohesiveness. It would be difficult to tell that each track is by the same band, because they sound so much different than one another.

The first Oprich track, "As in the Distance," is the least interesting to me, but the remaining three are all great. I don't think Rodoslav (founder of pagan neofolk band Krynitza and a member of Vo Skorbyah) was on the previous Oprich release, but he handles lead vocals on the final track, "Don't You Murmer, Mother Green Oaken Grove," and I'm a big fan of his unique vocals so this is was a treat for me.

I feel that Oprich has redeemed themselves (if indeed they needed redemption in the first place) with The Fireflower, and I certainly hope their next project is to create a full-length album. They've been around since 1998, so I think it's due. As for Chur, he's been signed to Hammermark Art Records (home of Kroda) and is currently working on his next full-length, and judging from the few samples on his website, it sounds like it's coming along quite well. It would seem that ...From the Ghostly Fog... is just an unfortunate misstep.

It's difficult for me to recommend this CD because of how disappointed I was in Chur's contribution to the split, but Oprich's half makes me glad I made the purchase. I'm not sure if that's a recommendation or not, but take it or leave it.

Album Review: Dalriada - "Szelek"

Artist: Dalriada (Hungary)
Album Title: Szelek
Label: Nail Records (Hungary)
Released: 2008 (April)

Dalriada is a band I just can't get enough of, so it was a very pleasant surprise when I found out they had quietly released their fourth album (the first two being under their former name, Echo of Dalriada) on the day of their appearance at Paganfest when the tour arrived at Budapest. While I waited for the CD to arrive, I watched the heck out of the video for "A Nap és Szél háza" on Youtube. While that single isn't necessarily on the level of "Táltosének" from their previous album Kikelet, it's still a catchy and enjoyable piece of music, and it gave me hope that their new album, Szelek, would be another worthy release in their already-strong discography. And, boy, were those hopes met when I heard the final product.

As a bit of background for those unfamiliar with the band (or who didn't read my previous review of Kikelet), Dalriada is a six-piece folk metal band from Sopron, Hungary, built mostly around the stunning and unique vocals of Laura Binder (or Binder Laura, following the Hungarian practice of putting one's family name first) and Hungarian folk melodies. If there is another band out there that sounds anything like Dalriada, I haven't heard them. They're quite a unique entity within the realm of metal.

Despite the fact that Szelek arrives only thirteen months after Kikelet (which, incidentally, arrived only thirteen months after their third album, Jégbontó), it doesn't sound half-baked or rushed at all. The band sounds very focused and tight on this release, and the songwriting is as strong as it as ever been. The vocals of Laura Binder and Andras Ficzek sound perhaps better than ever. While Szelek doesn't depart from the overall Dalriada sound, it does sound different than its predecessor in some pretty significant ways. First of all, they got rid of the violin that was featured on Kikelet. Second, the songs are less complex and are, overall, much more catchy and accessible than on Kikelet. They sound a lot closer, to my ears at least, to the Jégbontó sound, which is welcome. The songs are also not as heavy as they were on Kikelet, and seem to be more folk-based. Indeed, there are many "folk breakdowns" on the album, for lack of a better term.

As I said before, the songwriting is very strong on this album, and there are many memorable and enjoyable moments. There are rare occasions where a song may start to fall a little flat, melodically, but even in these infrequent incidents the song will redeem itself with a great instrumental section or chorus (see "Égnek Ostora" for an example of this). There's never a time when I think, "haven't I heard this melody from another band before?"

Fortunately, Dalriada seems to have fans in their own country, because Szelek was #2 on the Hungarian album sales charts on the week of its release; quite an accomplishment for a folk metal band, I'm sure. Now if Nail Records can only get their albums out of Hungary and into the hands of metal fans worldwide, they could really be onto something. All the ingredients are there, but unfortunately the distribution is lacking. A band this good deserves to get their music out there, so please, somebody, make it happen.

In the end, even though I had to import the CD from Hungary, it was well worth it and I would do it again if I had to. Do whatever you can to (legally) obtain the works of this great metal band.