Вічний оберт колеса (ETERNAL TURN OF THE WHEEL)

Ukrainian black metal masters Drudkh have never been a band resistant to experimentation, and 2010's Handful of Stars showed the band adding more post-rock influences into their sound than ever before. Rather than signaling a change of direction for their future releases, Eternal Turn of the Wheel shows that this was more of a brief detour than a radical turnaround. The music here is dark, gloomy, and progressive black metal that signals a slight return to form for Drudkh while still remaining unique from the rest of the band's output. Eternal Turn of the Wheel is a good way to usher in 2012 for black metal fans; its ice-cold atmospheres and unique stylistic traits make it a highly worthwhile listen for fans of the forward-thinking variant of the style. Although I need to brush up on the rest of Drudkh's discography before I can claim that Eternal Turn of the Wheel is one of their finest works, there's not a doubt in my mind that this is one of the more impressive black metal records from the last few years.

While I've heard Eternal Turn of the Wheel described as Drudkh's return to their black metal roots, that shouldn't at all imply that this album is your standard-fare black metal effort. Drudkh still inject their raw sound with plenty of atmospheric soundscapes and progressive overtones, and the entire album is laden with a thick layer of gloom. In addition to plenty of somber chord progressions matched by miserable sounding vocal shrieks, an obscure fog of synthesizer melodies can be found throughout a majority of the album. The depressive and somewhat epic approach of Eternal Turn of the Wheel can make comparisons to acts like Burzum inevitable, but there's also a progressive edge that sets Drudkh apart from your average act in this increasingly stagnant genre. The beautiful acoustic break in "When Gods Leave Their Emerald Halls" is a section that always jumps out at me, and the generally long compositions all have an epic sensibility. This is the sort of album that's absolutely perfect for appreciating with a pair of headphones on a pitch-black evening - the nature-based imagery that Drudkh's music portrays, while often dark and frightening, can take me to the emotional highs that I look for when we're talking about this style of atmospheric black metal.

Though most experts will argue that black metal is past its peak, albums like Eternal Turn of the Wheel prove that the genre is still alive and well in 2012. This atmospheric, mature, and intense journey shows Drudkh at a definite creative peak, and while it lacks that extra 'something' for me to call it a masterpiece, there are a number of times where I'm inclined to do so. Eternal Turn of the Wheel is an excellent listen for fans of Drudkh and atmospheric black metal in general; though 2012 is still young, this should stand the test of time as one of the year's strongest extreme metal releases. 4 stars are very well-deserved.

6/10

"Eternal Turn Of The Wheel" is a traditionally executed, yet pretty effective Atmospheric Black Metal.

Drudkh in 2012 are already considered Black Metal veterans. But the problem with veterans is that they get so used to the fact that they reach this status, that often they don't try as hard to make good music. Though it does, after a while, come out pretty naturally. "Eternal Turn of the Wheel" indeed feels almost effortless, in a good way, but you can tell that some of the excitement of the earlier albums is gone.

With the usual, rough production, the band delivers a pretty standard, typical Atmospheric Black Metal album, that remains extremely consistent with Drudkh's style. There is an overall less emphasis on the keyboards, which are used much more subtly. The vocals are probably the biggest change: much lower-pitched, less shrieked and a bit more human sounding, in contrast with the banshee vocals of the previous albums, a definitely interesting and quite different approach.

One of the darkest albums of the band, "Eternal Turn Of The Wheel" has a really intriguing, fascinating and gloomy atmosphere that reminds of a nocturnal, spectral, and especially, sylvan sight, where ancient ghosts roam around. The five tracks that together are only slightly more than thirty five minutes long, all feel very connected to one another, not only length-wise but also in terms of atmosphere: "Breath Of Cold Soil", "When Gods Leave Their Emerald Halls", Farewell To Autumn's Sorrowful Birds" all feel like windy, crispy tracks that aren't at all estranged from the rest of the band's discography. They still deliver great, memorable moments and haunting atmospheres.

The closing track, "Nights Woven Of Snow, Winds and Grey-Haired Star" feels a lot sludgier and crunchier, still however maintaining the chilly aura of the previous tracks. "Eternal Turn Of The Wheel" is a interesting and enjoyable Drudkh album that offers hints of originality occasionally; tradition though is a big aspect of this record, and as a consequence it doesn't feel that different or distinguishing from other releases of this legendary Ukranian band, who I personally will always follow, no matter how habitual they might become.

A return to form that takes slight influence from, but is a great improvement over Handful of Stars.

Ukrainian band Drudkh have been pumping out some of the best raw Burzum-esque black metal for almost a decade now. Their sound is dreamy and autumnal while remaining predominantly raw and heavy. Their previous album, Handful of Stars, however, being entirely post-rocky shoegaze black metal, was kind of a disappointment for their fans. Upon hearing that album, I became confused and scared for Drudkh's future. It seems now that there was no reason to fear.

Eternal Turn of the Wheel takes its name from a song on their debut album, Forgotten Legends, signifying that this is a return to form album along with the music that this album contains. The angry, melancholic, cold, nature-inspired black metal sound is back in full force, but I'd be lying if I said the post-black metal guitar tones from the previous album are completely gone. Compared to albums like the masterful Autumn Aurora and similarly breathtaking Estrangement, the guitars on this album sound somewhat cleaner (though always filtered through raw black metal distortion), similar to the electric tone during the heavier parts of an Agalloch album. Still black enough to satisfy fans of straight-up black metal, this new tone adds considerably to the dreaminess in Drudkh's sound, though it's very possible that this would also make long-time fans still worry about the band's future output.

In addition to the newer guitar tone, this album showcases very well the steadily improving skills of drummer Vlad; as per the black metal standard, Eternal Turn of the Wheel is full of relentless blastbeating, but Vlad does a great job at sounding varied and very muscular while attacking the kit. Also, as per the usual black metal standard, the vocals are delivered in a blackened, heathenish shout (nothing special). It is the bassist, however, who offers up my favorite moment on this album; he delivers a fantastically groovy bassline at the beginning of "Night Woven of Snow, Winds and Grey-Haired Stars" that sounds more like Chi Cheng from Deftones on the song "MX", and it is placed perfectly in the mix -- above everything else. On the other songs, the bass is audible while it thumps away steadily alongside the guitar melodies, but overall doesn't stick out too much.

The progressiveness of this album lies mainly in the construction of each song rather than in flashy showmanship. The track lengths each run over eight minutes (except the obligatory intro track) and goes through multiple repetitive and heavy atmospheric passages that beat themselves into your mind. For people unfamiliar with black metal and its progressive version, this album may just sound like constant offensive noise, but given close attention, this album can be as atmospheric and beautiful as the post-metal and post-rock genres that so heavily influenced the previous album.

The main problem with Eternal Turn of the Wheel is that it does seem to be slightly less energetic and inspired as Drudkh's classic albums, which kind of seems inevitable given the extent of this band's discography in only nine years. Regardless, this album is a huge improvement over the boring post-black metal shoegaze compositions of Handful of Stars that seemed to lead to nowhere except down a road of disappointment for the fans of the classic Autumn Aurora. With Drudkh's attempt at experimentation shot down entirely by a huge majority of their fans, the band forced themselves to attempt recreating the cold, autumnal atmosphere of past efforts, only to come up sounding a bit short of their goal. Despite the lack of intensity and atmosphere of their back catalogue, this is still a good album put out by one of this decade's most revered black metal darlings.