Пригорща Зірок (Handful of Stars)

There are some bands that try something new, some that keep pumping out cookie-cutter replicas, and then there are bands that take elements from their experiences and expound on them in a fresh and interesting way. In that sense, I am talking about Drudkh. Every album has incorporated similar elements, while meandering through new territory with every release.

This album that we are presented with is a great album that has an almost post-rock feel; with very clean, yet powerful sounding guitars, massive basslines, and the standard Thurios growl. It doesn't surprise me when I listen to this, that there is an overbearing post-rock sound to this recording. I mean, perhaps I didn't expect this to be the direction the band would take, but I surely find that this is not a far cry from their previous works. I only came to this conclusion once I listened to this album a few times, and then subsequently compared it to parts of their back catalog.

Musically, the riffs and time signatures, the quirky drumming, harmonizing and sometimes noodling bass, machine gun fire vocals followed by many minutes of instrumentals, a higher and tinnier sounding guitar riff accompanied by a deeper and more full sounding one...It's all here, but presented in a new way.

This is one of those excellent qualities that I see from Drudkh. There are never really any completely different sounding albums, but they never sound the same. I see many similarities to their other works, but the guitar tone is much different. It is cleaner, and tighter, and the wall-of-sound induced reverb has been filtered out, leaving the skeleton of the beast. The good thing is, as with pre-historic skeletons of dinosaurs, piecing together the elements that form the faceless entity of Drudkh are easily realized. Melancholy, mesmerizing tremolos, and pace changes are rampant here, but nothing seems out of place or sloppy. In fact, the lack of tinny reverb or extremely heavy distortion to the guitars show just how well this band plays together, and how tight the musicianship.

This also gives the listener the ability to hear the small innuendos throughout their musical journeys that may have been more difficult to pinpoint in their earlier releases, be it production reasons, or a massively distorted sound. First of all, the drumming is extremely technical. There is very rarely just a simple mindless Ringo Starr type routine. There are interesting and help create an illusion dispelling the fact that there are only a handful of riffs per song, but are jumbled up and recycled in a very dream-inducing way. I can find myself falling into the different instruments of the band, falling into the harmonics of the bass guitar, or being thrashed with crashing of a multitude of cymbals. This is another fantastic journey for any Drudkh fan. Though this is not for everyone, and is a huge departure from the sound of Microcosmos, it is still all-in-all Drudkh, and even this clean and streamlined recording has moments of unabated beauty. I like this more and more every time I listen to it.