WHITE WARD — Illusions (review)

WHITE WARD — Illusions album cover EP · 2012 · Depressive Black Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
siLLy puPPy
Amongst the wealth of black metal bands coming from around the world, perhaps no other nation has captured the bleakest sounds better than the Ukraine. For some reason this region of the world is just teeming with lo-fi angst-ridden doomsday-seeking musicians dwelling on as much misanthropy, horror and depression as humanly possible. WHITE WARD is one of countless black metal bands from Ukraine which formed in Odessa in 2012.

WHITE WARD wasted no time cranking out a couple demos and this debut EP titled ILLUSIONS which fits the textbook definition of depressive black metal on its way to post-black and blackgaze terrain. While the band would eventually meander into atmospheric black metal, on ILLUSIONS they fall squarely in the depressive aisle of the metal supermarket on the shelf next to Sweden’s Shining and the San Francisco based Leviathan but not really quite as accomplished in the creativity department.

At this stage the lineup was Alexey Sidorenko (vocals), Vladimir Bauer (bass), Yuiry Konoov (drums), Yuriy Kazaryan (guitars) and Alexander Smirnov (guitars). This EP only has three lengthy tracks but the playing time still just misses the 25 minute mark. While the band has been getting more attention in recent years for adding jazz elements to its blackgaze haziness, at this stage WHITE WARD was pretty much a standard nondescript sounding depressive black metal band.

The repetitive monotonous chugging guitar riffs, apathetic drums and melodic wailing guitar parts in the background are like the musical equivalent to a suicide note as the vocals growl away beneath the depressive banter of the guitar distortion and mid-tempo rhythmic drive. Overall ILLUSIONS is a decent slice of depressive black metal but also falls squarely into generic mediocrity as there is absolutely nothing on this one that makes WHITE WARD stand out from its more famous Western European contemporaries. Still though if you can’t get enough of this style of black metal, it’s certainly not a waste of time either.
Share this review
more

Review Comments

Post a public comment below | Send private message to the reviewer
Please login to post a shout
No shouts posted yet. Be the first member to do so above!

Review Index

Member Zone

Username:
Password:
Stay signed in

Metal Subgenres

Artists Alpha-index

MMA TOP 5 Metal ALBUMS

Rating by members, ranked by custom algorithm
Albums with 30 ratings and more
Master of Puppets Thrash Metal
METALLICA
Buy this album from our partners
Paranoid Heavy Metal
BLACK SABBATH
Buy this album from our partners
Moving Pictures Hard Rock
RUSH
Buy this album from our partners
Powerslave NWoBHM
IRON MAIDEN
Buy this album from our partners
Rising Heavy Metal
RAINBOW
Buy this album from our partners

New Metal Artists

New Metal Releases

The Goblin Sessions Heavy Metal
THEM
Buy this album from MMA partners
Tormenta De Arena Metalcore
VORAGO
Buy this album from MMA partners
Infinite Metalcore
FUTURE GHOST
Buy this album from MMA partners
Heretic Melodic Death Metal
SUNCINDER
Buy this album from MMA partners
The Skull Burned Wearing Hell Like A Life Vest As The Night Wept Mathcore
FRONTIERER
Buy this album from MMA partners
More new releases

New Metal Online Videos

Future Ghost - Wolves (Official Music Video)
FUTURE GHOST
Bosh66· 1 day ago
Future Ghost - Nemesis Game (Official Music Video)
FUTURE GHOST
Bosh66· 1 day ago
Harrowed TwentyTenVideo
HARROWED
Bosh66· 3 days ago
Sunmancer - Realms of Dilemma (Official Visualizer)
SUNMANCER
Bosh66· 8 days ago
Sunmancer - Lower Cavalier (Official Visualizer)
SUNMANCER
Bosh66· 8 days ago
More videos

New MMA Metal Forum Topics

More in the forums

New Site interactions

More...

Latest Metal News

members-submitted

More in the forums

Social Media

Follow us
Follow us on Twitter Become a Facebook fan RSS Feed