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Drudkh: Forgotten legends
06/05/10 || Khlysty
Do you like Ennio Morricone? Me, I like him lots. I have to admit that my favorite work of his is the soundtrack that no-one really heard for John Carpenter’s absolute classic “The Thing”, where Morricone abandoned for a while his trademark style and composed some of the most claustrophobic and, well, scary music this side of WOLD. But, fuck me with a Colt Peacemaker if I don’t immensely enjoy the music that he’s composed about a gajillion films and, especially, the music for Sergio Leone’s great spaghetti westerns. The melodious twang, the withered harmonicas, the drowned horns, the lonely mouth-harps, the sense that, if you closed your eyes while listening to the music, you’ll be transported into a land of mesas, cacti, sunburned soil, the smell of horses and cordite and sweat invading your nostrils, the oily aftertaste of raw tequila or the spiny gulp of moonshine burning your throat, your life depending on how fast can you draw and how many are you willing to waste…
But, hey, what all this has to do with Drudkh? I mean, they’re from Unkraine, for fucksake!!! And they play, like, BLACK METAL, not spaghetti western soundtracks!!! Well, when the first song of their debut album kicks in, the first thing that comes to my mind is fucking Ennio Morricone’s music for some kick-ass western movie, fresh out of Cinecittà Studios. Yes, yes, I know that Drudkh uses tremolo-picked guitars, double bass drums, that the vocals are of the raspy howl variety. I know all this, but, dammit, just LISTEN as “False Dawn” gallops through the gates and tell me if it’s not the perfect soundtrack for the scene where the hero –a tormented, damned soul- comes riding towards Dead Man’s Gulch to extract revenge for some unnamable crime committed there, juxtaposed with scenes from the town, the baddies preparing for the final deadly showdown. All that’s missing is some winded harmonica playing a funeral march over the din of the guitars and everything falls neatly in its place.
Probably that’s why I like “Forgotten Legends” so much. Because, instead of going for black metal’s usual blasted white-out, it strives –and generally succeeds- in creating a purely cinematic atmosphere. Based around melodic riffs and minor scales, that are repeated so as to create a trance-like mood of majesty and tension, galloping drumming and sparse vocals, the music contained here seems to be custom-made for some dark and quasi-revisionist western movie, that critics all around will collimate with ancient tragedies or road movies. This is, above and beyond all, mood music, created to make the listener feel and conjure images inside his head. Yes, it’s based upon black metal’s foundation, but it’s much less abrasive and confrontational that your basic black metal fodder. Of course, doing this review based on Season Of Mist’s re-issue of the record, I know that the album was remastered, but , anyway one sees it, the sound emerging form my speakers is surprisingly clear and “layered”, so I think that the guys in Drudkh put some money and effort production-wise, and fuck your “tr00”, “grim” and “nekro” dictums of black metal.
Look, this is really good. It’s one of them records that visit and revisit my cd player. It’s got the looks, it’s got the hooks, it’s got professionalism and dedication written all over it and, if one accepts that the band went for creating mood music, it’s ace. Of course, Drudkh of today is not Drudkh of yesteryear, as “Microcosmos” amply proves. But, for what it is –that is, a first step towards excellence and evolution- “Forgotten Legends” is one hell of a good record. Epic, majestic and –I repeat myself, I know, now fuck you- cinematic, it’s a record to travel with –inwards or outwards, that’s something anyone has to chose for one’s self…
- Information
- Released: 2003
- Label: Supernal Music (2009 Season Of Mist re-issue)
- Website: Drudkh MySpace
- Band
- Roman: guitars, bass
- Thurios: vocals, guitars, keyboards
- Amorth: drums
- Tracklist
- 01. False dawn
- 02. Forests in fire and gold
- 03. Eternal turn of the wheel
- 04. Smell of rain
