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Bucovina > Septentrion > Reviews
Bucovina - Septentrion

Majestically, proudly and strong - 90%

brj, December 12th, 2018
Written based on this version: 2018, CD, Asociația Culturală Țara de Sus (Digipak)

Bucovina crafts a quite ambitious mission statement with this album: to follow-up on the more commercial line they have initiated with „Nestramutat” without alienating their older „Mestecanis”-days fan base, and they nail it for the most part. The guitar work on here is beautiful: though not the most technically-challenging parts you’ll ever hear, they exhibit a smooth highly-polished oneness, easily transitioning from aerial saccharine acoustic sections to harsh ominous black arrangements to stomping old-school heavy riffage. The vocal sections are well thought out, Crivat’s explosive interventions a welcome counterpoint to Luparu’s powerful (yet infused with an underlying yearning) delivery. The band also does a good job of avoiding the verse-chorus-verse-solo-verse song structure that is quite common in the heavy genre and quite dull, to be honest.

Some tracks really stand out. The title track grows under your very eyes from an unassuming folk B-side piece into a metal monster with a sing-along chorus (reminds me a bit of Alestorm's "Magnetic north" not due to the topic, but because it also does a great job at being a cross-genre marvel). "De cremene" makes for one spine-wrecking all-out headbanging number despite the moderated tempo (or maybe because of it). "Noaptea nimanui" has a slow build-up but eventually develops an intercity drive, all on top of some of the most wistfully introspective lyrics the band has ever written. The bonus track, "Vinterdoden", is a nice redo of one of their first album tracks with a pretty cool story (Helheim have given their blessing to Bucovina to write & record a song based on their lyrics but since no one in the band speaks Norwegian, a native friend of theirs have spoken the lyrics so they could simply mimic them). On the other hand, I admit being a bit on the fence about "Stele calauza" - while I do tend to like the usage of the overarching lead theme, it does indeed bring memories of "Armata strigoi".

The overall musicianship on display shows the evolution you’d expect from a band constantly on tour over the last couple of years. The guitars interplay remains solid, Mishu’s delivery on the drums does not succumb to the snare-bashing beat-blasting repertoire of less skilled drummers but remains dynamic and colourful all across the album (a particularly good example is „De cremene” that also exhibits killer double bass sections), while the lead guitar sticks to its trademark of perusing major scale harmonies and reaches new technical peaks with the tapping solos on "Din negru" and "Faurar de vise.

PS: in case you were wondering if the oblique reference to Running Wild in this title is accidental, well, it's not, just a fitting tribute to one of their main influencers.