The Angry Scotsman With this album, Drudkh moves from dense and atmospheric to ferocious and focused. "The Swan Road" has a more traditional black metal feel than any previous album.

After the into piece "1648" becoming a Drudkh staple we are thrown into "Eternal Sun" with maniacal tremolo picking and blast beats. Was weary to see the almost 8 minute play length, but the song actually has some good variation to it, and never drags. Moves along perfectly. Also some very cool parts. Of course the guitars are very distorted, needless to say.

This can be said for pretty much every song. Give this album some time and it turns out to be a little more sprawling than the first listen seems. The songwriting is really good, simplistic musically but changes just enough, and at the right times, to never drag really drag on. Like previous albums, there are some guitar solos and really cool melodies, showing that they can do something besides play the hell out of their instruments. The album ends on an intriguing note: The song "Fate" is far less extreme and moves with a moderate pace the whole time, while "Song of Sich Destruction" is just a sitar, (I think) and Ukrainian folk singing.

Speaking of which, the vocals are bit more prominent, (not nearly as buried) and while impossible to understand, the lyrics deal with various events in Ukrainian history and are taken from works by Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko.

Took a few listens to grown on me, this is a solid album of well constructed black metal, with real movement to it.

Three Stars

Phonebook Eater I’ll say that the thing I like the most about this album is the cover, a true work of art. The album itself, well, isn’t as good. Usually, a band creates with their album their most mature and acclaimed album. Drudkh wasn’t one of these cases.

What changes and makes everything different? Well, the music doesn’t sound so Atmospheric anymore, all the progressive is gone, more songs, this is just a plain black metal with a few good songs. And when it tries to get a little atmosphere, it just doesn’t work, or at least not as well as in other occasions. One thing if the album that I really like was what, in the end, it transmitted me, which is the love for the antique, the old world, and especially the love for Ukraine, the country where the band is from. Their patriotism in fact has always been very highlighted and proven, thanks also to some moments, during the album, like in the whole final song, where Drudkh gives an open tribute to Ukrainian folk music, or maybe just general eastern folk music. But the Black Metal moments didn’t always appeal to me, unfortunately. Like I said, though, I really like the intentions the band had in making arrangements.

Despite all the bad things said earlier, they are some great moments and songs here; “Eternal Sun” isn’t a typically Drudkh song, but it works, thanks to it’s brilliant melodies and ideas. “Fate” is a surprisingly haunting piece of music, being at the same time rough and strong, but the clean guitar that echoes in parts of the song is something I’d die for. The final “Song Of Such Destruction” is the folkish song mentioned earlier, without growls or electric guitars; just a melancholic voice singing in Hungarian and an old sounding guitar playing from a radio. I’m really glad the band decided to insert a song like this one in one of their albums.

The Swan Road is an album I wouldn’t recommend to everyone, being mainly a very rough Black Metal album with some calmer moments in the middle of the songs; if you loved the first two Drudkh albums, I can’t guarantee you’ll feel the same for this one.