DRUDKH — Forgotten Legends (review)

DRUDKH — Forgotten Legends album cover Album · 2003 · Atmospheric Black Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
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.
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