VELICHYE I TAINSTVO KAVKAZSKIH GOR

"Majesty And Mystery Of The Caucasian Mountains" is one of Senmuth's most inspiring releases. The brilliant multi-instrumentalist Valery Av mixed once again ethnic folk sounds and some new age approaches with a few great metal riffs this time. Instead of doing another record about Egyptian mythology, Indian religion or Japanese history, Senmuth picked the beautiful nature of Western and Southern Russia and created a conceptual album about the beauty of the Caucasian mountains. The album sounds fresh because it's not only a brand new topic and proves that Senmuth doesn't even lack of ideas after almost fifty albums but also because Senmuth added some accordion and harmonica samples that create a more authentic Eastern European flow.

The best songs are surprisingly the heavier ones on the album. "Alania. Caucasus" is one of the best songs Senmuth has ever written so far in his stunning career and mixes great and engaging metal riffs with dynamic accordion parts that invite you to dance and bang your head along to this song. An interesting fact is that the album closer "Ancient Alania" uses pretty much the same accordion samples but in a different way with a more epic and experimental side which creates a completely different but almost as brilliant song. Another highlight on this album is called "Mountain Ravines" that employs some great harmonica parts and unpredictable but very catchy melodies. The album also contains a few calmer and more new age influenced tracks like "Phantoms Of Clouds" or the creepy "Shelter Of Eleven" that are not as addicting but contribute to the development of a mysterious and majestic atmosphere with some darker tones and great folk instruments.

All the typical Senmuth trademarks can also be found in an almost perfectly executed way on this record. We have some chilling acoustic guitar passages, some mysterious sitar parts and even the didgeridoo has found its very own distinctive place inside this record to only name the most present elements.

Even more than before, the sounds of Senmuth create certain images before our ideas and feelings in our heads. After listening to this record I always feel as if I had just watched a detailed documentary about the Caucasus. I would even say that this music is more intense than any movie I have seen of this kind. In my humble opinion, this is the small certain kind of magic where this album even beats very good to brilliant works like "Swadhisthana", "Rajas" or "Sacral Land". There is not a single weak track on this album and it now gets difficult to elaborate an appropriate rating. As I had as much fun discovering this record as I had with "Weird", I wanted to give it the same rating even though those two records are still quite different but I realized that I still preferred this release which is the reason why I added a little generous point to my final verdict. Choose your personal favourite between those two masterpieces but be sure to check these intense records out and open up your mind.

Originally published on www.metal-archives.com on September 25th of the year 2011.