Vehemency
With four full-lengths over the course of ten years, one could expect a tad more popularity from a group like Wackhanalija hailing from Belarus, but to this date the band has remained in almost total obscurity. It has been five years since the last offering, though In the Hope of Your Death, this massive 51-minute album of atmospheric and melodic black metal, was already recorded back in 2006.
I wouldn’t go as far as saying that the band’s non-existent recognizability is due to the music’s low quality, but I can still see that Wackhanalija isn’t inventing anything new here, and when it’s combined to a rather sloppy, polished production where programmed drums are somewhat annoying, the result isn’t really charming. But, without a doubt, there are great ideas presented throughout the album during which the band both accelerates in speed and aggressiveness and also knows how to slow things down to Burzum esque, moody atmospheres.
There’s also a constant undertone of medieval ambiance, mostly thanks to the fine use of synth / midi sounds reminiscent of - once again - Burzum’s prison cell albums. This is apparent on tracks like ”In Embraces of the Black Wood" (probably the highlight of the album) and though they are not concretically present on every song, they somehow intertwine their ambience onto the whole record. The truly magical piano / synths combinations of ”Through Unreality of the Nightmares” are definitely worth mentioning here too. Also, expect a nice load of acoustic guitars (”God of the Fog”, ”Emptiness”, ”Sabbath”) on the album, as well as overall proficiency in the instruments played. This applies to the bass guitar too which is nicely apparent and provides some sweet lines every now and then.
In the end, In the Hope of Your Death does not exactly disappoint yet I do think it’s too long a monster, plus the drum programming clearly isn’t for the band’s good and neither is the overall polished sound that would have profited from a little harsher appearance that could have given the compositions a well needed punch. Fans of Eastern European black metal are the main audience of In the Hope of Your Death, and perhaps I would be one among that audience as well if only the biggest glitches of the album were fixed. Consider the rating somewhere between two and a half and three stars.