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Madeloud "Return To Abandoned"
08/15/2011
Maybe in the Ukraine you can't swing an axe without hitting a pagan black metal band, but it does seem strange that as somewhat obscure and specific a genre as the aforementioned would feature big releases in the last few months. Drudkh dropped Handful of Stars last year, promoting at least a few of us to dump praise on the Eastern European band's forward thinking, ambitious, but ultimately fat-free compositions. The album was a cleaner, less buzzy form of pagan black metal, but the careful production on the vocals and otherwise more advanced recording techniques took away little from the group's thrust and focus. However, the record wasn't an anomaly, and it's apparently wrong to think such a peculiar genre (like "Santa Fe shoegaze reggae"?) was isolated to just one or two bands.
Enter Khors, yet another black metal group from the Ukraine with a naturalistic foothold — I guess when it rains blood, it pours. The band's newest album is called Returned to Abandoned, and while the band manically fuses the atmospheric with the heavy in a way similar to their countrymen in Drudkh, the onslaught of Khors is more crystalline and sure of itself. That's not necessary a plus or a minus, but just an observation — there's the creepy mystery of one and the more overt complexity of the next. Returned to Abandoned makes its strongest statement within the nearly ten minutes of "The Seas Burn of Omnipotence," a big, moody composition full with soaring synthesizer, guttural growls, and acoustic-based breakdowns that get downright pretty before brimming over with angst.
While this track is arguably the most brash piece of technical pagan metal to be found on Return to Abandoned,, it's certainly in good company. "Lost Threads" begins with an instrumental breakdown that is equal parts Renaissance Faire bombast and unhinged metal snarl. The former is displayed through both a constant underpinning of acoustic instruments and through that synthesizer, which — depending on your tolerance for the tone — is either going to add another layer to Khors' sound or just sound hokey. For this reviewer, the honestly nerdy tone of the keys becomes less of an issue with each listen — yeah, it's an uncool sound, but the songs are well-written and dark enough that the band can sustain a little bit of "Final Countdown" keyboard bravado without losing the plot.
Return to Abandoned is unique black metal that will primarily appeal to fans of the more technical and well-produced subsets of the genre, as opposed to those who purely get their kicks from the gauzy and weird thrills of lo-fi and super-creepy groups like Murmuure. With that in mind, Khors does feature a little of both, though, making it at least worth checking out for anyone with love in their heart for all things earthy and black.
Enter Khors, yet another black metal group from the Ukraine with a naturalistic foothold — I guess when it rains blood, it pours. The band's newest album is called Returned to Abandoned, and while the band manically fuses the atmospheric with the heavy in a way similar to their countrymen in Drudkh, the onslaught of Khors is more crystalline and sure of itself. That's not necessary a plus or a minus, but just an observation — there's the creepy mystery of one and the more overt complexity of the next. Returned to Abandoned makes its strongest statement within the nearly ten minutes of "The Seas Burn of Omnipotence," a big, moody composition full with soaring synthesizer, guttural growls, and acoustic-based breakdowns that get downright pretty before brimming over with angst.
While this track is arguably the most brash piece of technical pagan metal to be found on Return to Abandoned,, it's certainly in good company. "Lost Threads" begins with an instrumental breakdown that is equal parts Renaissance Faire bombast and unhinged metal snarl. The former is displayed through both a constant underpinning of acoustic instruments and through that synthesizer, which — depending on your tolerance for the tone — is either going to add another layer to Khors' sound or just sound hokey. For this reviewer, the honestly nerdy tone of the keys becomes less of an issue with each listen — yeah, it's an uncool sound, but the songs are well-written and dark enough that the band can sustain a little bit of "Final Countdown" keyboard bravado without losing the plot.
Return to Abandoned is unique black metal that will primarily appeal to fans of the more technical and well-produced subsets of the genre, as opposed to those who purely get their kicks from the gauzy and weird thrills of lo-fi and super-creepy groups like Murmuure. With that in mind, Khors does feature a little of both, though, making it at least worth checking out for anyone with love in their heart for all things earthy and black.