For
a long time the Russian doom scene was known to the community abroad
exclusively thanks to the legendary and prematurely defunct traditional doom
band Scald. This was a truly unique phenomena in Russia Gods Tower Byelorussian
Gods Tower
Not
long after crossing the ten year boundary, just before the New Year, Solitude
Productions published the sophomore LP release of Who Dies In Siberian Slush,
“We Have Been Dead Since Long Ago”. Out of the six songs featured on the album,
two were already known to those familiar with the band’s last year’s split with
Ego Depths, “Four Fragments of Fading Life”, namely “Refinement of the Mould”
and “Spring”. The former is a solid piece of excruciating, extremely negative,
dismally slow, close-to-textbook funeral, but still death doom. “Spring”
features composition that’s closer to the funerary genre, but it’s the gradual
rhythm shift of the melody and good mid-tempo riffing, culminating with a solo
in the first half of the song that create a mood that makes listening through
the whole eight minutes easier – the diversity definitely helps.
As for new
stuff, “The Day Of Marvin Heemeyer” is the first new song you’ll hear on this
release. This six minute track stands out by featuring speech samples in
English, but even more so for the artist’s evident desire to push this song to
the edge of almost being straightforward old-school aggressive death metal. It
is a curious and atypical move, but you have to deal with your inner demons,
and in the case of WDISS this is expressed in following their own traditions:
“In A Jar” is a fine example of the familiar dry and maximally slow death doom
with heavy growls featured on their first LP. That Chekhov’s gun the band
hanged on the “wall” of the first album, “Bitterness of The Years That Are
Lost” has finally been shot – in part, the plot is fueled by alcohol
dependency, close enough to the image of the bread-covered glass, traditional
for Russian funeral wakes, featured on the cover of the band’s debut. “Funeral
March №14” is a heavy instrumental rendition of a death march by Vakhoutinsky.
That solemn march hardly caresses your hearing, the guitar parts truly ooze
coldness and put a weight on your heart.
The final composition “Of Immortality”
is an interpretation of a poem of Arseniy Tarkovsky, “Life, Life”.
Conceptually, a very fitting continuation of the tradition established by
“Zaveschyanie Gumilyova”; musically, dry and moderately melodic music, just as
we would expect from the band. When musicians use not only their own ideas in
their music, but also the experience of artists from other ambits of art, I
cannot help but feel happy for them, so I see the references to Vakhoutinsky
and Tarkovsky in an exclusively positive light, as those are elements that some
contemporary bands are devoid of. Using the legacy of the past from time to
time shouldn’t be something to fear.
…Since
the beginning of the first doom wave quite some time has passed, the death doom
trend lost momentum and mostly only memories remained of the bands that carried
its banner. Sometimes, they would be brought up on forum discussions or even
could deign us with odd releases, which, it would seem, weren’t that
interesting even to their makers. But still, at times some activity would be
seen: Revelations of Rain could resurface, Roman “Boss” could gather a couple
of bands for a concert Wings Of Doom, or even new bands could arise with
debuts, even if the albums wouldn’t be popular. In our time, other trends are
favored, good or bad. On the Russian doom death scene, Who Dies In Siberian
Slush look like a guarantor of stability and known quality.
To be frank, even
though I admit the technical and compositional pros of their new album, it is
still difficult for me to connect with it on an emotional level. Still, on “We
Have Been Dead Since Long Ago” the band gives, in my opinion, a very good
example to other musicians: there is room for growth and a goal ahead, and with
some effort and patience it all can bloom into interesting new material, that
will be fresh and recognizable against the background of a multitude of current
releases. “Bad guys’ sorrow” – that’s how the band
defines the concept behind their album. Sounds convincing enough, but I have to
add that those bad guys really did a damned good job.
words by Aleksei Evdokimov
words by Aleksei Evdokimov
No comments:
Post a Comment