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.

The Angry Scotsman This album is a great example of how black metal can be good!

Always a fan of black metal's cold, grim often melancholic yet aggressive aesthetics, I also found most of it unlistenable, it just could never grab me. Usually because it easily gets boring or was simply so horrid. However, with their debut release Drudkh puts out a good piece of traditional black metal.

It is harsh, low fi, filled to the brim with buzzing guitars and shrieking vocals. This is certainly a straight up black metal album, however there are some differences with "Forgotten Legends". While these songs are long, they do have some variation. Just enough as a matter of fact! These songs are simplistic and repetitive but they don't continue on playing the same 2 rhythms for 12 minutes. The music changes up, just a bit, and just often enough so the songs never drag. Even over 16 minutes! Moves with the perfect pace and flow.

There are not many blast beats to be found here, the drumming instead utilizes long chains of double bass to push the songs along. Something out of Burzum's book and a style I prefer over the unrelenting blast beats we usually see with the genre. This is alternated with simple, straightforward drumming, both of which gives the music a more melancholic feel in my opinion.

Also from the church of burzum is some subtle songwriting. At first you may hear an abrasive wall of buzzing guitars but when you really listen you will find some real melodicsism and subtlety. More than a simple wall of noise, it is truly layered and textured.

The vocals are typical black metal shrieks, but a bit buried which is nice. Makes them more of an additional instrument than vocal assault, easier to swallow. I am also a fan of when vocals are treated as more of an instrument than conveying a message, especially for more extreme metal, and that is the case here. The lyrics have never been released. Add this to the shrieking style and low fi music and it is literally impossible to even know what he is saying!

A perfect example of how black metal atmosphere can be tempered with just a bit of musicianship to make something really good. Not for everyone of course, but if you can handle extreme metal this is a great album.

Three Stars

Phonebook Eater Drudkh has now become one of the great cult metal bands. They have been since 2003, when their debut was released, and when they were already being recognized as one of the most original Black Metal bands out there. Perhaps what makes them so fascinating is the mysterious secretiveness they always applied in their works; they never give interviews, nor any lyric sheets of their songs. “Forgotten Legends” is something a Black Metal fan shouldn’t miss, even though some other following Drudkh albums will be even better.

What Roman Saenko and his band did here already looks original; sure, it’s Atmospheric Black Metal with Burzum as a main influence, with some Folk Metal passages, as well as Nature Recordings here and there to give more the feeling. Nothing too new here. But how the band is able to evoke concepts, such as arcane, ancient landscapes or, like the title of the album clearly implies, forgotten legends and tales of ancient lands and people, is like no other band can really do. This album is just the beginning of this great band’s career, and most certainly a good start.

In a way, this is the most radical and harsh Drudkh album: four tracks, all long (two of them over ten minutes), rudimental in their structure, but extremely solid. These four tracks represent perfectly the band, even though sometimes the results aren’t as satisfying as they should have been; if the opener “False Dawn”, almost sixteen minutes long, is one of the best Drudkh songs ever recorded, because f it’s intensity and strong emotional impact, “Eternal Turn Of The Wheel” can be very dull and unnervingly flat. Also, the strange contrast of cheerful melody and dreadful atmosphere in “Forests In Fire And Cold” isn’t always working, even though, I must admit, it is most of the time. Excellent closing track however, the brief nature recording of “Smell Of Rain”.

At times scary, at times hopeful and haunting, “Forgotten Legends”, despite having some issues, is well worth your time.

Vehemency If I tell you that I own four different versions of Drudkh’s debut ”Forgotten Legends” on three different formats, you may already guess that it’s a fanboy speaking here, and I won’t even try to write a formal and professionally critical review. For the last half decade, ”Forgotten Legends” has kept its place as the most important and personal album for me, so keep this in mind when you read my superlatives in the following paragraphs.

The album consists of three long, brooding, repetitive and incredibly emotional black metal songs in addition to the outro ”Smell of Rain” comprised of a rainy thunderstorm. Sound-wise, the album is very full: the guitar sound has lots of power in it, still sounding very misty and ethereal in a way. The bass guitar is also audible and playing in good balance with the dynamic - and beautifully unprofessional yet still tight - drumming. Roman’s mid-range screams deliver great emotions even if the English lyrics are almost entirely incomprehensible - it doesn’t matter.

The first sixteen minutes of ”Forgotten Legends” consist of just one track, ”False Dawn”, which takes the word ’repetition’ to full use. After the furious first part of the song, the song falls into a slow-tempo riff that keeps repeated for minutes and minutes - but the great thing is that this one certain riff can take lots of repetition to itself before sounding tiresome, and, in fact, I wouldn’t mind hearing even a longer version of this track, where the last riff could just go on and go on... ”Forests in Fire and Gold” approaches with slightly more folkish edge, mostly thanks to the subtle acoustic guitars in the background in the beginning. Also this song manages to rise to some of the best musical experiences I’ve ever had the pleasure to hear: again thanks to the minimalistic compositional style where new things appear only rarely, but when they appear, they are mindblowing. Also, the bass guitar is in the spotlight here for a while with its soothing, simple melody. ”Eternal Turn of the Wheel” continues in the same vein and stays true to the words ’repetition’ and ’atmosphere’ and I don’t think it’s of any use to list any specific moments anymore.

Some people might find this boring, and it can ultimately be that if you look for catchy songs and sudden cool twists; ”Forgotten Legends” is the opposite of that. Throughout its playing time, the album does not present a plethora of different riffs at all. What it contains is a heavy dose of repetition: one of the most important things on ”Forgotten Legends” right after the thundering, heart-rending melodies that are, as you have already guessed my opinion, perfect.