Conor Fynes 'Blood In Our Wells (Кров у Наших Криницях, Krov u Nashykh Krynytsyakh) - Drudkh (7/10) Often matched up against their second work 'Autumn Aurora' as Drudkh's crowning achievement, it has been a long time coming for me to get around to hearing 'Blood In Our Wells'. They are a band who require no introduction; since their decidedly Burzum-inspired 'Forgotten Legends', they have represented Ukraine's enigmatic black metal scene with a particular focus on atmosphere. 'Blood In Our Wells' sees the band incorporating a greater measure of melody into their arboreal style, and while I might still point towards 'Aumn Aurora' as the greatest of what these Ukrainians have to offer, their fourth album is an ambitious expansion on their already intriguing sound.

One thing that's often mentioned about these guys is that they refuse to post their lyrics, and paired with the fact that most of the band's listeners will not be familiar with the finer elements of the Ukrainian tongue, this leaves the band's subject matter up to the listener's imagination. Like its predecessor 'The Swan Road' however, 'Blood In Our Wells' uses the work of regarded Ukrainian poets, complimenting the romantic lyrical imagery with an introspective atmosphere. Although Drudkh's sound still lurks about the lo-fi depths, the instruments are well mixed and clear. The vocals (presumably done by Thurios) are surprisingly distinct for a genre that often defaults on rasping; his delivery is aggressive and intelligible. Although the lyrical content is not 'original' to the band, it is incorporated beautifully into their music. It is not a far stretch to hear Drudkh's dreamlike atmosphere being matched with Lina Kostenko's agrarian metaphor.

Melody is a more prominent aspect of 'Blood In Our Wells', although this to realize itself most in the music's handful of dramatic climaxes; moments within the typically longwinded compositions in which all emotion is let loose. 'Furrows of Gods' and 'When The Flame Turns To Ashes' are both highlights on the album, maintaining the band's penchant for repetition only long enough to make their point. The latter of those two concludes on a particularly stunning note, collapsing into a melodic dirge among the greatest Drudkh have ever done. The album's second half becomes more longwinded, but the slight dip in quality does not break the atmosphere, which 'makes' the album. With the band's trademark addition of arboreal folk instrumentation into the black metal soundscape, 'Blood In Our Wells' makes for another stirring experience. It does not give the same shock, nor envelop me as much as did 'Autumn Aurora', but for the critical acclaim I had read of it, I have not found myself disappointed.

Phonebook Eater We arrive at the album that consider Drudkh’s masterpiece, “Blood In Our Wells”. I have to disagree; it isn’t as good as “Autumn Aurora”, but it gets pretty close. In fact, this is in my opinion the second best Drudkh album, better than the debut “Forgotten Legends” or the difficult “The Swan Road”.

While with their previous album it seemed like they lost much of their progressive style, “Blood In Our Wells” is the most progressive work they have done so far: many keyboards, slow and dreamy instants, many time changes. The songs are almost all long, clocking around ten minutes, all of them with very complex, multi part structures. Indeed, this is a progressive album. Once again the lyrics are full of accentuated patriotism and love for Ukraine. The title itself “Blood In Our Wells” comes from an old, Hungarian poem of the same title.

Dark, intriguing like no other Drudkh album, the band here brings to the songs a little more simplicity in the melodies, making it at times a little predictable, but at the same much more accessible to the public. This is probably why many worship this album. This does not mean that the songs aren’t able to give those emotions that every Drudkh fan has knowledge of; The different parts of the songs, other than connecting brilliantly, have all an obscure and cryptic feeling that no other album of the band was able to conceive, probably also thanks to the cleaner sound of the guitars, that make it even more effective. The calm parts though aren’t always as good as you would think they would be, in fact these are the parts where the music gets pretty often predictable.

Generally speaking, the atmosphere is muh more alarmed and energetic than the previous Drudkh albums; I think it’s because the band in this album, thematically speaking, got a lot more close to the human element, abandoning the evocative, wild nature auras. Just look at the cover of the album; for the first time we see the presence of man, in an extremely grim circumstance. Maybe with “Blood In Our Wells” the band got more sensitive with the generic problems, fears, and hopes of man, even though inserted in a very dark context.

“Furrows Of Gods” has the darkest and most mysterious melody, “When The Flames Turn Into Ashes” the most complex. These two, with the intro, are my favorite pieces. “Solitude” get’s boring and it’s a little too long, “Eternity” is a little unusual, but it definitely works more than “Solitude”. “Ukrainian Insurgent Army” never really worked for me, except for some parts.

“Blood In Our Wells”, despite all the things I said against it, is an album I really, really like, and it an excellent addiction to whoever loves this kind of music, or whoever hates humanity.

Vehemency Along with the debut Forgotten Legends and Autumn Aurora, Blood in Our Wells is a pinnacle moment in Drudkh’s history, and I don’t think I exaggerate if I say that it’s an important album in the whole area of atmospheric folk black metal. While the first two albums focused more on the beauty of nature in general (that is just my notion), The Swan Road incorporated elements from Ukrainian traditions, and this is further explored on Blood in Our Wells. The album’s overall feel is almost cinematic: this is due to the movie samples (from a film named Mamaj) that are present in the beginning of every track.

Drudkh’s sound is at its most massive on Blood in Our Wells: the album sounds huge and thrilling, with probably the most professional production Drudkh has had to this date - a big contrast to the next black metal album Estrangement which sounds like a rehearsal recording compared to this. Composition-wise, Drudkh has some almost progressive elements in its music, meaning that the song structures aren’t as simple as before: there are sudden breakdown moments and the guitar solos are on bigger role. Technicality isn’t, however, exaggerated so that everything is done with good taste.

The songs tend to be long, most of them are around the 10-minute mark but this is no problem because Drudkh has managed to come up with some really heart-rending melodies. There is repetition, yes, but I don’t mind hearing riffs of this quality over and over again. A personal highlight moment has always been the latter half of ”When the Flame Turns to Ashes” but in all honesty (and in all fanboyism), the whole album is pure gold of melancholic, folky black metal. Not to forget all the nostalgia that this album arouses in me, too - I won’t deny that.

From the dynamic drums to goose bumps inducing guitar solos and emotionally powerful vocal delivery, Blood in Our Wells is bombastic and, well, perfect. All the riffs seem to be in their right places and this is one of those rare albums of which I can’t find anything to complain about - not even in my reviews in which I always try to find something to criticise about.