АРКОНА — Возрождение (2016) (review)

Album · 2016 · Folk Metal

4.5/5 · 2016-11-01
adg211288

Re-recorded albums. Many artists do them at some point, but most of the time the exercise is deemed to be completely pointless by their fans. Most likely the original didn't need re-recording in the first place (it may even be considered a classic as is the case with Flotsam and Jetsam's No Place for Disgrace (1988)). The end result of such an endeavour won't be seen as being as good despite the artist's best efforts. However one album that has always struck me as actually being able to benefit from being re-recorded is Возрождение (2004) (Vozrozhdenie), the debut album by Russian folk metal act Аркона (Arkona). Serving as their eighth full-length album and the follow-up to Явь (2014) (Yav), Возрождение (2016), is the re-recorded release that I've hoped and expected Arkona to one day do.

The reason why this album needed re-recording is not because the original was poorly done but because in their early days Arkona didn't use real instruments to create their folk sounds, instead synthesising them. So obviously the biggest draw this new version of Vozrozhdenie is that the band now use authentic sounds on it as they have done ever since their third album Во славу Великим! (2005) (Vo Slavu Velikim!). The original was always a pretty damn good album even done the way is was back then, so swapping in authentic folk can only be a benefit to the album.

With that said, this version's songs do remain very faithful to the originals, so listeners shouldn't expect any lowering of the amount of synths used and new folk parts added instead. Vozrozhdenie has always been a pretty symphonic sounding work from Arkona and this new version highlights that even more than the original. The same can be said of how much power metal influence went into this album compared to their more recent work, which displays more black metal than is present here. This is an album with lots of speed and melody, but also strong extreme metal aspects too thanks in no small part to vocalist Masha "Scream" Arkhipova continually switching between melodic clean singing (in Russian, of course) and death growls. The most notable change between the two versions of Vozrozhdenie is that the original also featured some guest vocals from Lesiar of the bands Крамола (Kramola), Невидь (Nevid) and Butterfly Temple on a few tracks but on this version those parts are handled by Masha. I tend to prefer it that way personally, as I wasn't keen on his vocals on the original version.

Vozrozhdenie was already a decent album in its original form, being the incredibly varied folk metal release that it is, and this new version enhances pretty much every aspect of it. The folk instruments are now real, so it feels more natural. The production is just that bit more polished, so it feels more powerful too. From this it's clear that Arkona have learned a lot since 2004 and the album is a recommended purchase even if you already own the original version. Here's hoping that the band's second album Лепта (2004) (Lepta) will be given the same treatment in due course.