DRUDKH — Forgotten Legends (review)

DRUDKH — Forgotten Legends album cover Album · 2003 · Atmospheric Black Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
2.5/5 ·
Conor Fynes
'Forgotten Legends' - Drudkh (5/10)

Taking the Sanskrit word for 'forest' and adopting it as their band name, one can get a sense of the sort of aesthetic that Drudkh approaches, before even hearing a second of this Ukrainian black metal act. Although the band has since moved on towards a more polished and diverse state of music, the bands now-classic debut 'Forgotten Legends' still shows a band that is not afraid to defy the conventions of a genre plagued by an unfortunate number of elite and self- entitled members. However, although a powerful piece of work in some aspects, the album finds itself too often lost in the mire of it's own repetition.

Having been often compared to the legendary sound of Burzum, Drudkh's music does bear a resemblance to the Norwegian black metal icon's, but 'Forgotten Legends' does adopt an identity of it's own. From the opening natural ambiance bursting into the fiery barrage of 'False Dawn,' Drudkh may have the fast tempo, rapsy vocal style and atmosphere that black metal is renowned for, but Drudkh makes their voice unique with a penchant for epic song lengths, hypnotic replay of ideas and sparse folk references that most other black metal acts overlook. Although there are trademark black metal snarling vocals here, it's kept pretty sparse and the majority of the music here consists of long, drawn out instrumental sections. For an album defined by great song lengths however, Drudkh makes a surprisingly heavy emphasis on the repetition of ideas, which makes out to be the music's greatest weakness.

While Drudkh's replaying of the same chord progression over and over again does achieve a sort of hypnotic effect, the bottom line is that the novelty does wear thin, leaving the listener begging for a few more musical ideas, when there are no more in store. The fact that there are only a slight handful of musical ideas in each song played obsessively in repeat can either make 'Forgotten Legends' feel a lot shorter, or much, much longer than it actually is, depending on the listener's mindset. The album's great flaw aside however, the few ideas that are present here are all very powerful and emotionally stirring, and with a much greater sense of diversity and dynamic to fall in place for this band soon after the release of 'Forgotten Legends,' Drudkh would be creating some great things.
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