Відчуженість (Estrangement)

This is a revision of an old review written in 2008.

”Estrangement” marks an interesting but confusing shift in musical direction for Drudkh after the pompous, grandiose ”Blood In Our Wells”. The aforementioned is the band's most focused and professional work to date, and perhaps elaborating the results of their relentless pace of writing and releasing albums, this album gives an impression of Drudkh having become somewhat drained, as ”Estrangement” is quite unfinished, unpolished and raw compared to its predecessor. The most important difference, however, is not related to production or performance, and curiously, despite being utterly flawed, this album is actually in many ways superior to the band's other work.

Unlike many previous albums, ”Estrangement” features blast beats, but the music is not much more aggressive for it. They serve to generate roughness to the music, but ultimately, the material is softer than before, and the pomp and bombast of ”Blood in our Wells” has been replaced with fragile, delicate melody and wistful atmosphere: if previous albums tended to be somewhat grim and wintery, this one is definitely one for the summer. The music is still atmospheric and fairly dark, but ”Estrangement” seems to be less inspired by nature and national history than its predecessors, instead coming across as more intimate and personal. There's also a sense of fragility in the music, as the performance and production is far less polished than on any previous Drudkh album – the flawedness and the lack of glint and gloss gives the album a pictoresque charm, befitting the fact that it's probably Drudkh's most genuinely emotive album.

Though often mellow and pleasant, at times the atmosphere crosses to distressful and somewhat chaotic territories. The more abrasive passages are where the music tends to fall short, as the band simply doesn't have the aggression to back up the speed and note density. The most notable shortcoming on ”Estrangement” is, interestingly, the guitar solos. ”Blood in Our Wells” featured some rather flashy, dramatic shred solos. They came across as meticulously composed, and they were played with excellent precision. Here, the solos are awkward at best, and comical at worst (one is compelled to think that the intensely loud crashing sound in ”Where Horizons End” was put there to mask some cringeworthy failure in that abysmal guitar solo), and completely different in nature besides the vast shift in quality. The same man is credited with the guitars as before, which is baffling. Personally, I'm inclined to think the band may have received some external help before. If not, just how much vodka was involved in the recording of this album?

As usual for a Drudkh album, the songs are driven by only a handful of riffs respite their considerable lengths (the last song, four minutes long, is only one riff). There is not really any hypnotic repetition or any such thing, either – the music simply relies on the pretty, wistful atmosphere, and the varied and dynamic soundscape, featuring for example screaming guitar tones, a clanking bass and a supremely tight, ringing snare drum. The drummer does manage to bring considerable variety to the music, and the uncompressed, organic production allows his dynamics to come through nicely. What's actually interesting, though, is that the pretty, wistful atmosphere is actually not complete garbage. Even when things get saccharine, the riffing is inventive and unique enough to not become tepid. ”Estrangement” emits an entirely different kind of Slavic melancholy than its predecessors – it's more silver-lined and brighter, but for all that it even seems much more genuine.

Doubtless an improvement from the minimalistic and mostly worthless ”Anti-Urban”, ”Estrangement” marks for Drudkh a diversion from the previous direction of which ”Blood in our Wells” was probably the logical conclusion of. There is certainly unrealised potential here, as the album is ultimately a very unfinished and raw product, still with most of Drudkh's major flaws steadfast. Though ”Estrangement” seems to be Drudkh's least polished album, featuring some of the most obvious performance and writing flaws, ironically it's the closest the band came to being genuinely good besides the odd isolated moment of brilliance on ”Blood in Our Wells”.

Drudkh is a band who often get heavily criticized for not changing sound much between each albums, most of their albums have this annoying tendency to bleed into one long affair, no differentiation between them. It’s probably my only problem with this band however as the music they put out is usually of a high quality, it’s nice and atmospheric, got a great forest feeling to it. The music is good enough for me to look past the lack of diversity in this bands catalog, because if I want great atmospheric folk inspired black metal Drudkh are one of the best bands doing it. Of course however, when a band puts out the same album for much of their career you begin to wonder about when the music will run dry. When the quality stops and repetition becomes a curse. This dip in quality comes in the form of Estrangement, easily the weakest Drudkh release I've heard. Whilst it obviously doesn't differ from Drudkh’s usual sound, song writing is where this album suffers. The songs are quite boring, they have an annoying tendency to drag on, making them seem longer than they are. Whilst some individual riffs and other moments are pretty cool the overall delivery comes off as incredibly apathetic and languid. It feels watered down, diluted, there’s not a strong enough edge to the music. Sure it’s melancholic as hell, a riff in Where Horizon Ends is beautifully depressive and emotional so that’s most certainly a plus. But really, it’s a fairly diluted Drudkh album. The atmosphere is more melancholic, more down to earth, not as ethereal and otherworldly. The riffs have been diluted, stripped down, they come across as atmospherically flat and fairly uninteresting. The vocals are sparsely deployed as well, meaning that it falls upon the boring guitars to emulate the (uninteresting) atmosphere.

Estrangement suffers a great deal on a lot of fronts. The music itself is frankly quite boring, yet at times there are some good moments. The last track in particular is really good; it’s quite emotional, suitably melancholic and highly atmospheric. It’s also short as well, which is a plus. Drudkh is a band who tends to meander about when playing long songs. There musical ideas work better when applied in short and effective doses rather than being stretched out for long period of times. Whilst, Drudkh can undoubtedly create effective long songs, Microcosm is a good example which contains some fantastic lengthy songs. Estrangement is an altogether different story; the ideas aren’t flexible enough to allow for a lengthy delivery. The guitar riffs not interesting enough to be repeated into oblivion. Where atmosphere is concerned it’s okay, it seems that Drudkh are incapable of creating a pathetically weak atmosphere so I’ll give them credit for that. However, the atmosphere on Estrangement isn't as powerful as their releases prior. It still carries a forest vibe with it but it comes across as generally flat and uninspired. The wall of sound effect the guitars carry is especially weak, it’s not as hazy and atmospheric as other Drudkh releases. It’s quite banal and bland, not really adding much to the music and just generally sounding weak and diluted.

Drudkh is a band who has become identified primarily by their atmosphere (at least for this reviewer). They’re very effective at creating hypnotic and powerful music, Drudkh come across as very trance inducing and ethereal due to the levels of repetition present within the music. However Estrangement falls flat on its face. The music just isn't interesting enough to be repeated for any length of time, guitar riffs come and go without leaving much of an impact. It’s overall largely forgettable, uninspired and quite atmospherically flat. Not much of anything happens in Estrangement, it’s disinterested, tired, apathetic and what other synonyms for tired you can think of, because that’s what Estrangement largely is; tired. There’s no real stand out moments on here, whilst the overall quality is consistently okay, just being okay isn't going to cut it. Only The Wind Remembers My Name is pretty good though, it has a nice solo and the riffs are quite emotional and atmospheric. Also it’s the shortest song on here so it doesn't have time to meander about with trying to find it’s footing. If Drudkh would have kept to the short and sweet songs this album would get a higher rating from me. But as it currently stands with the bloated song lengths and generally uninteresting ideas, Estrangement becomes a bit of a taxing listen. There are undoubtedly moments of excellence on Estrangement, they’re usually buried beneath a layer of repetition that just doesn't go anywhere. For what it’s worth it’s not terrible, it’s just not that exciting either.

After "Songs Of Grief And Solitide" comes their sixth - "Estrangement".

Despite the common resemblance of every single Drudkh's album, each has its own trait, assignable only on the one of the albums. If "Forgotten Legends" has many epic moments, "Autumn Aurora" performs pure atmosphere, "The Swan Road" was the presentation of raw and unpolished black, "Blood In Our Wells" copies the second one just mixed with more quiet and interesting sounding, then "Estrangenment" has melancholic, even depressive mid-tempo/slow-tempo sound together with extremely monotonous tunes played on the same frequency and pitch.

Okay, after my doubtful words about the stylistics of the album, it might seem that the reason of misunderstanding and disparagement of this album is clear and distinct ('cause there are too many "haters" of such a style I've described above), but, actually, "Estrangement" doesn't perform you exactly what I said. It is something else. And there's a big complicacy to desribe it precisely.

So, to my mind, "Estrangement" has the most harmonic musical part. Not quiet, not tranquil - but accurately harmonic. I don't want to be misunderstanded, but the fact is that all of the components of Drudkh's music composes the picture of total equivalence and compliance. It brings everything to conformity with the realization of harmonic conception of music.

However, there can be noted some disadvantages. Despite the genius and harmonic musical constituent part, we have also rather ordinary lyrics by the way (as it may seem). Though somebody can decide that there is just one more poetic writing, praising Ukraine and the nature of that country, in reality there are the works of one of the most distinguished ukrainian poets of 20th century Oleg Ol'zhich (actually, the last was his hobby; in practice he was one of the leaders of ukrainian nationalists equally with Stepan Bandera, whom Drudkh have dedicated the album "Blood In Our Wells"). So, we can understand that, while musicians declare about their indifference to the political theme, they are real patriots of native country.

I like it. Even moreover, I love it. Absolutely everything suits me on that album. "Estrangement" is the regular masterpiece from the ukrainian genius band Drudkh. 98/100!

To highlight: hmm, I guess, every track is cool.

Drudkh are a weird band, they can write some of the best depressive/repetitive/hypnotic type of black metal and almost release bad and forgettable albums despite the good riffs. Well it somewhat makes sense since it's a kind of black metal that can easily dive in the boring category when bands stick to a very static song structure and overall performance, a category Drudkh unfortunately tend to float in. Over the course of time, they started to try new things here and there by changing a bit their sound or adding things, with varying results of success in adapting the frail balance found in this type of music. They first dropped their very moody and hypnotic riffing as well as the organic songwriting that went with it on The Swan Road, which meant they had to rethink how to write songs even if they remained quite similar in style. The album wasn't bad, but there was a significant drop in quality resulted by their shift of what they wanted to achieve with the riffing. Blood in Our Wells got things better and introduced a more cinematic sound, yet streamlined the song structure but each song managed to stand out as its own and keep a good coherent atmosphere throughout and have highlights. Then comes Estrangement - when discarding the accoustic Songs of Grief and Solitude - which is arguably their worst album as they streamlined the songwriting even more in a way that made each track feel like a combination song parts put together for no apparent reason.

The biggest problem of Estrangement, is that Drudkh stick to that aforementioned streamlined formula so each of the four songs have almost the exact same defined structure with the closer, "Only the Winds Remember my Name" being a bit different due to its short length. If you look at the track lengths, three songs out of four have the almost exact same running time, which is almost eleven minutes. And it's not for no reason because as I said, that's because it's basically the same song repeated three times but with different riffs, and it's even more apparent since there's only four tracks. You'd normally expect all four to somehow stand out which is not the case here, all are completely interchangeable since they almost sound the same and have a very similar mood and atmosphere. I even numbered each riff and in which order they are played; there is only one or two notable difference in structure in each track, for example the opener features an intro, a riff that only gets repeated during the solo. Otherwise, each song starts out by playing two riffs two times, then a third one followed by a solo being played on top of it, a fourth riff and then both played a second time, "Solitary Endless Path" stops there, "Skies at Our Feet" has a fifth riff being played till the end while "Where Horizons End" has a sixth one being played two times with that fifth. Very similar, basically, all three tracks can be separated in three distinct parts which follows the very same pattern themselves with no layering or build-ups at all, all parts, riffs and also drumming, being very clear-cut. Add to that Estrangement having almost always the same tempo and riffing type, and it's all the more detractive.

And besides all songs feeling samey and interchangeable, another problem arises; the riffs themselves. They are good, quite good in fact. They're nothing you wouldn't expect from Drudkh - at least since The Swan Road - though leaving the more cinematic feel of Blood in Our Wells in favour of a more... natural or foresty sound not unlike Autumn Aurora has - and the album sees the return of minimal keyboards very similar to those found there with a certain feel of grandeur, which is a great thing - but quite different in a way, having a more depressive feel, leaving the hypnotic sound - well, they left it since the album that came after - of their first two albums. And that's the key problem about their riffs here; they don't have the right feel, or are as good, to be played in such repetition and way. While Forgotten Legends' riffs drown you in the thick atmosphere of the dense warm woods, Estrangement fail to have such a present atmosphere, it is clearly there yet not as immersive making the songs leave you with a bad impression after several listens even if the riffs are truly good. And while Forgotten Legends' riffs seem to be a continuation, a slight shift in atmosphere and presence of themselves, as any of them progress as you were yourself wandering in these woods Drudkh masterfully depict, Estrangement merely mechanically puts one riff after the other in no real logical way, in a certain structure (three distinct, separable parts, which could be shuffled with the others) that everything feels unrelated, that combination of riffs failing to achieve anything greater than the sum of its parts, it's even less than the sum of its parts. Well, at first you could almost feel like the songs really creates some kind of tight sound and atmosphere, but as the songwriting gets more apparent, it starts to feels stagnant and repetitive.

That's the album's problems compared to their previous, superior works - but there still could be a solution to make the songs much more interesting as the album as a whole, and that is what Microcosmos actually did and why it ended up being a so much better album; a dynamic song structure that actually changes from song to song. So really, Estrangement is a hard album to get around and formulate an opinion on, on one hand it has very good riffs which evoke great moods and atmosphere, but on the other hand, nothing goes anywhere as everything remains static, one-dimensional and interchangeable, thus ultimately the album being rather bland, repetitive and relatively boring.

Dramatics in folk metal is a tricky venture…usually the genre would be more reserved for the run-and-fun approach, that extra care needs to be used when making those bouncy rhythms stand out in a more PG-13 rated format. This is a bit harder to properly digest when coupled with the more extreme of metallic genres, especially the vitriolic anger of black metal; it’s quite hard to have fun when you’re musically pissed about something, and equally hard to convey acidic angst when your fan base is doing a jig with steins held high. I guess you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

Let’s see if this is the case with DRUDKH and their musical wares…

This here DRUDKH act, and especially this album, seems the be dwelling more in the realm of the BURZUM-esque black/ambient world with elements of folkish melodies and atmospherics that’s pagan to the absolute bone. Light and fluffy but with that proper rage and violence of some of the better black metal entities, “Estrangement” has plenty to show for all the group’s shortcomings, which as more than simply minute. Bone-crushing brutality and nature-dwelling niceties are present, where the slashing guitar/bass work, thin blast beats, agonized screams and folky instrumentation paint a bleak and night-like image of feral forestry, nature taking complete and utter control , the whole affair seems stretched a bit too long and overtly repetitive for the band’s own good, especially when three of the four songs are over ten minutes long I guess that‘s the cross to bear with ambient metal acts; using consistency to beat a real mental image into the heads of listeners aplenty. I’m sure that would work for those who are into that sort of thing, but it may lead to a bit of listening disturbance that could lead to people being turned off if that which they wanted DRUDKH to be all about won’t come to pass. Still…if such attention to detail is to be had, time flitters by as if nothing, much like time in the woods in the woods, which seems to be the case here with this album; once you start taking in that which DRUDKH has to offer, you could very well get so swept up into the grand scheme of things that before you know it, that elongated song length is already ancient history. It just takes a bit of patience to take in…this definitely isn’t for the casual corpse-painter, nor is it intended to be, and those who are willing to take in the majestic monstrousness of the likes of each track (there’s only four and each one possesses an identity all its own) may end up being encapsulated to the point where you forget the bitter reality outside his/her headphones. And sometimes, that just has to be the way.

In the end DRUDKH serve up some stirring escapism, but not all that they have to offer is a perfect square meal. There’s a time and place for this kind of thing, and as good and proficient as these Ukrainian folk are, I don’t see this being an everyday kind of thing. Still…it ain’t bad.

„Estrangement“ was one of the albums I most anticipated in 2007. In my eyes, Drudkh are a band who truly succeeded in creating at least one album per year without the quality going totally down the drain. 2006 saw their best creation with “Blood In Our Wells”, so I thought it would be very hard to raise the bar even more.

And I can say that at first I was a bit disappointed, mainly because of the production. Yes I know, it’s not bad and your ears don’t start bleeding after listening to it more than two consecutive minutes. But the production doesn’t quite fit the music. It reached its perfection on “Blood In Our Wells” and because the music on “Estrangement” resembles “Blood In Our Wells” a lot, I think it’s a step backwards on the scale. Sometimes it’s just very powerless and the drums are too present all the time which inevitably means, that the guitars are stepping into the background and so the melodies can’t unfold totally.

Musical wise Drudkh didn’t change much since “Estrangement”'s predecessor. The whole sounds very majestically and sublime, as always. But this is one of the negative aspects. It’s just a whole repetition of “Blood In Our Wells”. Yes, it’s a repetition of a high standard, but they just didn’t manage to maintain that standard over the whole playing time. Speaking of which, the playing time is criminally short. In general I’m a huge fan of lengthy albums and Drudkh also have shown that they’re capable of filling a CD with 50 minutes of pure genius. So why not just wait a bit with the release and compose another song instead? It can’t be that hard for them, when they’re able to do two similar albums. Oh yeah, I forgot, they want to release one album per year. Great in theory but this comes out if you’re in a hurry.

The lyrics are somewhere above average. If you read the song titles you almost get tears in your eyes because they sound so beautiful and romantic, but the lyrics just don’t fit them. Okay, they weren’t written by Drudkh, which will cost them some points, because if you make music, you should also write your own lyrics. Everything else is just ripping of other persons efforts.

The only track that really fully convinces me of their genius is “Only The Wind Remembers My Name”. It’s an epic instrumental where you really can feel the emotions behind the music. The solo fits the song just perfectly and overall this is the best song on the album. It’s not forcefully stretched to 10 minutes playing time but cut down to the very essential parts. Even the production I criticised above fits this song.

In general I like “Estrangement”. It has it’s weaknesses but it’s far from a really bad album. And with “Only The Wind Remembers My Name”, they have really shown what they are capable of. For the next album just take more time and try not to repeat yourself in such an obvious manner.

I'm sure that I am not the only one who was very disappointed with the last two drudkh albums, but I can truly say, that this album marks a great return of this once fantastic band. Befor I could get my hands on Estrangement, I already saw some reviews on the internet and most people were satisfied with it, but had to bite the dust after they heard the drums at 2:24 on the opening track "Solitary Endless Path". Well first of all, I don't quite get the problem. I must agree I heard better blast-beats then this, but how can you give a 40% or 50% rating just because of one song? That's wrong in my opinion so befor I judged this album, I gave it a couple of listens.

For the most part, "Estrangement" sounds like the opening song of Forgotten Legends (False Dawn) meeting the atmosphere of their magnum opus "Autumn Aurora", which is probably the best thing drudkh could have done. Not only the drums have changed from the catchiness that we heard in Autumn Aurora and "Blood in Our Wells", but also the vocals and the guitar. On Estrangement, drudkh tried themself with a couple of solos and they sound fantastic. Also the middle part of "Solitary Endless Path" with the acoustic steel guitar in the background creats a very unique atmosphere. The vocals are a bit deeper then on Autumn Aurora but still high-pitched, interesting blend that remains harmonized with the music.

While their first three songs tend to be build in the same way, with lots of beautiful riffs and decent drumwork, the album closes with "Only The Wind Remembers My Name" which is the only song under 10 minutes. An instrumental track with a kick-ass solo (once again!). Now, even though that I liked Estrangement and will keep listening to it, here and there I got a little bit bored because the riffs tend to sound the same after two-three spins, which is the reason why I gave it a 87% rating. If there would have been more variety, Estrangement could have beaten all of their previous works, no doubt about it!

As some might ask themselves, as Drudkh ‘fanboy’ with me buying both deluxe versions of Blood in Our Wells and Estrangement, how could I possibly give such a low rating when there is so much praise for this album? Pretty fuckin’ easy… it’s a snoozefest of a Drudkh album. If this was some brand spakin’ new band it sure might get a little higher rating from me, but Drudkh have set the bar with previous releases and sure as hell fall short if you will with this album. After reading the reviews here, I pretty much found it necessary to give a review and rating that seems to fit and acknowledge the ridiculous high ratings of a very average album. Giving honest rundowns of albums in my short list of reviews on this site is my calling lately, as you can look for yourself in my profile.

This album is disappointing to say the least. I’m sure there are many of those new to Drudkh that might enjoy this. It is impossible for me to enjoy this after listening to their previous metal albums. This is not top notch. This sure as hell isn’t Drudkh’s best yet. Does it have “artistic value”? Sure. Even that man-lady Sopor Aeternus has artistic value. I appreciate Drudkh's sound and style all the much, yet this album lacks and lacks hard in the songwriting department. Album of the year? Fuck no. Does this album smash everything else in black metal? Fuck no again. If this album is best you've ever heard in your life, you obviously haven’t heard older Drudkh, or much black metal, or much metal at all. Being ‘ahead’ of Nokturnal Mortem isn’t that much of an accomplishment either.

There seems to be a fence between Drudkh fans. Those who love everything until Blood In Our Wells and hate the rest, and those who seem to think Drudkh can do no wrong at all. I’ll admit that with my fondness of Drudkh I blur the two, holding Drudkh's first 4 albums in highest regard. Blood in Our Wells had a change from previous works but holy moly did it have some just downright awesome moments like 3:19 of Furrows of Gods, and the ending of When the Flame Turns to Ashes at 6:28 and onward. Every song had something to offer and held my attention at least. You might consider Anti-Urban foreshadowing of this release, since I figured those two songs were so bad and boring that they didn’t make it on any album. What a cash-grab that was, nothing more than a collector’s item. Any who, I’m only stating this that there are in fact some people who think as I do, and don’t just appreciate the orthodox Burzum-esque moments.

There are very few memorable and commendable moments in this album. ‘Solitary Path’ has a good moment at 2:48 that got me just on the verge of head-banging. Good solo at 5:19 as well. ‘Skies at Our Feet’ is pretty enjoyable mid-paced typical Drudkh all the way through, but nothing stands out at all. The first 4 minutes of ‘Where Horizons End’ is pretty forgettable. After that maybe an okay part, then back to snoozeville. Boy that sure was a quick 11 minutes. Nothing grabs you here, it almost makes you forget what you just heard and want to start it over. (Lemme start this song over again. Oh that’s right, I’m fuckin' bored. No wonder it went by so quick.) The last song ‘Only the Wind Remembers My Name’ is pretty good. As another reviewer here pointed out that Drudkh should make shorter, catchier songs, they sure nailed that idea here. No vocals? Who cares? It’s short, catchy, and has a killer guitar solo just as the other 3 songs do.

Production-wise it’s pretty solid. Everything sounds okay... but one thing that bugs the shit out of me is when the drums are played really fast, all the other instruments suffer greatly in volume. This is probably mostly due to the bass drums taking up all the lower end, and cymbals taking up all the high. It happens around 4:10 in ‘Solitary Path’. Katuxu's Hunger of the Elements is another pinpoint example of this which has plenty of these moments that sound like garbage. Malevolent Creation’s Warkult has a bunch too.

This isn’t a downright shitty album, just sure as hell not up to par with Drudk’s other metal releases. Songs of Grief and Anti-Urban don’t even count, as they are both worthless. If you are new to Drudkh, you are much better off starting with their first album and working you way up.

For many people Estrangement was one of the most anticipated albums of this year. The time was coming for the annual (the band still keeps that period) Drudkh full length after two teasers – acoustic Songs Of Grief And Solitude, pleasant to listen to, but nothing revolutionary and EP Anti-Urban, which rather disappointed. Simple cover art will hint at the style of the first two albums and so does the length and the number of tracks, if the music will continue in this manner, success will be guaranteed :)

Drudkh got their fans by playing their emotional black metal, every riff every solo every vocal full of emotions. Nature and feelings prevail in the music themes, everything usually played in slow or middle tempo. This would be also what puts people off at most, at first glance monotonous riff repeating, nothing really “happens” etc., but everything is made up for with the majesty, feeling and the variety (in a song of 10 minutes this isn't that clear for everyone :)).

But now lets talk about the album itself .. fast start and riffs so typical for Drudkh come to the front, the mood of the song changes all the time, everything is as we like it, maybe just the end sounds like they ran out of ideas and the song fades out. Skies At Our Feet is here .. slow majestic start is here and it tells us how the song will continue in the first half. Then everything starts to move just to calm down later on, still everything is grandiose and the end of the song is totally psychedelic. Maybe the best song they've ever recorded. Third piece starts off a bit wildly, after a melancholic solo it breaks into a slower riffing and the rest just sort of blends, which might bore someone .. it's not bad, but maybe too stretched out .. Only The Wind Remembers My Name is one of the shorter works they've recorded, but it doesn't lack atmosphere and urge.

I think that all of you, who like Drudkh, will be impressed by the new album and those, who don't know them, will not be disappointed.

Written for http://www.metalzone.info

I know, it's a bold statement but please, read on.

Drudkh's new album Estrangement was recently released and it's reviews have been somewhat on the fence through most mediums. So let's face it, if you're a fan of melancholic slower-pace black metal you probably love Drudkh, and if not... Well you wont find much to enjoy here. It's the same old Drudkh, slower-pace, emotional, trance-like music with flawless transitions to sway your mood and thought pattern back and forth for 36 and a half minutes. So previous nay-sayers wont like this any more than their previous albums, but those who truly appreciate their sound (and not just the odd song here and there) will fall in love with Estrangement.

The album opens up with a short cryptic sentence spoken in Ukrainian which sounds like a sample from a film. This is the beginning of Solitary Endless Path, a masterfully played song which moves through trance like melancholy to parts of booming thunderous attack.

The same feeling in the first track caries on through to the following song (Sties at our Feet) and halfway through it, the drumming rhythm intermittently becomes a gallop and ends into blast beats.

Where Horizons End, the third track inverts the song construction format of the previous 2 songs, bringing the album back to a slower pace. This song begins with a more aggressive sound and leads into a more soothing sound. One thing to note about this track is the obscure drumming in it. There are a few parts in this track (mostly the beginning) where the drumming sounds a little off yet the timing still fits properly. It takes no listening adjustment to due to the flawless transitions on this album and it certainly adds an interesting flavor to the song.

Drudkh finishes this album off with a dramatic instrumental (Only the Wind Remembers my Name). This song has a pleasant sound to it with an ongoing emotionally haunting pace. The memorable guitar solo on this track sent shivers up my spine.

And speaking of guitar solo's you'll find one in each track, each more emotional and haunting than the last. The bass guitar has also been made more audible on this album giving it a more physically gripping sound.

This is their best album to date due to their continuously evolving sound. My only suggestion to anyone who will listen to this album it is to not just listen to it but to experience it. There is much artistic value to be found here if you just open yourself up to it.

Drudkh remain a tricky proposition for me. Some of their stuff (Aurora, Swan Road) is, in my mind, totally freaking excellent, while other albums (Grief & Solitude, Blood in Our Wells) being quite terrible/mediocre. There's a fine line between hypnotic beauty and monotonous dirge, and Drudkh cross it regularly.

This is another Drudkh album that has it's moments, but can also be plenty boring. Lets talk about the good stuff first. Skies at Our Feet (sweet song name) starts off all typically Drudkh-ish, the drums pounding out a typical 3/4 beat, lots of cymbal rolls and what not, the guitars doing their usual dirge thang. But the last few minutes is a quite inspired freak out, with the drums doing some imprecise but still totally fitting blastbeats, and the guitars tremelo-ing and just going nuts. Perhaps it's just me, but there definitely seems to be some of an Isis/Pelican/etc kind of influence to this, with the way the guitars have been composed, and the steady build up. Whether that's true or not it's awesome nonetheless, definitely one of Drudkh's finer moments. Likewise, Solitary Endless Path has a great intro and some nice bass playing. It's a typical Drudkh song, sure, but for the most part it reflects the good parts about Drudkh- the passionate vocals, the hypnotic guitars, the usual nice foresty vibe they have.

But there's also plenty of moments of fail. Indeed, Solitary Endless Path, for all of its niceness, has moments where you're just really bored, and there's not really much going for Where Horizons End. The problem has plagued Drudkh for a while now- in an attempt to broaden their palette, they introduce elements which really don't work for them. The somewhat puzzling use of blastbeats is a good example. To put it simply, the drummer is really bad at blastbeats. In some cases, (Skies at our feet a good example), the music is enjoyable enough so that you don't notice. In Horizons, however, the lack of any constant volume and steady tempo make the whole thing sound really awful. Likewise, Drudkh's attempts at speeding up in this album fall flat. The guitar riffs just aren't memorable, and the whole thing becomes quite boring and flat. Sure, most people would assume fastness= more interesting, but when songs reach ten minutes long it doesn't matter whether they're fast or slow- they have to well written. And these songs are just really quite boring.

..So, another disappointing Drudkh album. Their third bad album in a row. It's a shame really, as the solutions seem quite simple- write shorter songs, write catchier songs. But obviously that hasn't happened, and we've got another Drudkh CD full of epic songs that have their moments, but for the most part just bore you. Don't get this, you don't need it, no one needs it.

Since Drudkh formed back in 2002 they have become one of the most highly regarded black metal bands. Reviews averaging the high 80s to the low 90s, and their first of three 2006 releases; Krov u nashykh Krynytsyakh (Blood in Our Wells) was a staple among the “Best of ‘06” lists. So why I have I given such a low rating?


Musically this album is best described as horrible; people may argue its pure emotion, if the emotion they are trying to express be boredom, this album nailed it perfectly. Everything contributes equally to this monotonous lament that is Estrangement. From the repetitive guitar riffs which sound to be written by someone whom had no concern for musicianship, to the drums that could easily be the result of randomly punching beats into a drum machine. I can’t pick at the vocals as they are rather good for black metal; such a shame the music isn’t as good.


Ideologically Drudkh are not the typical black metal band covering deeper themes then death and anti-religion. This is not a good thing in this case; minimalist melancholy songs about forests and poetry ultimately lead to a snooze fest; I might add this is coming from a doom metal fan; slow and long songs are not new to me.


Drudkhs success has always been a mystery to me; how is a band that is so repetitive and monotonous held in such high regard by so many people. Estrangement is a testament to how much this band lacks; musically and ideologically. But by all means check this album out if you don’t believe me, as I am one of the few people to give a negative review on this album and to a greater extent Drudkh.

Drudkh, perhaps the most acclaimed black metal band from the northern Europe area, have once again greet us all with a majestic slab of NSBM. And although the past 2 releases (Anti-Urban and Songs Of Grief And Solitude) were considered by a lot of people as disappointments, fans of the band will likely see it as an experimental phase as this album is a return to form. The melancholy and naturalistic euphoria Drudkh has always evoked is still beating strong and this release is a testament to that statement. But lets consider the actual music.

Clocking at a mere 35 minutes, and composed of only 4 songs (3 being over 10 minutes) you get the 3 different journey tracks and a rather short epic closer. The production, its harsh in the vein of The Swan Road. The drumming sounds completely organic, the snare sounds different on every beat and be ready there are LOTS of blast beats on this album (something Drudkh mostly has avoided for the 5 past releases). The guitars are repetitive as always and the fuzz of BM is ever present. The bass is there somewhere buried like 5 feet below the wave of sound. Vocally, Thurios is scarcely used, but thats no surprise for any fan of the band. As i already mentioned the feeling of nationalism and nature is really felt all over the speakers, as on every other Drudkh release, they seem to pour their souls and ideals into it, and it really shows!

I honestly consider Drudkh has given us an album that hints to previous efforts (especially to the debut - Forgotten Legends) and i think thats what will appeal to most old fans of this band, for example the drumming on the first track quickly remembered me to the song Forests in Fire and Gold, my favorite Drudkh track, and the same happens on the four track that reminds me of the outro to Blood In Our Wells. Speaking of, in my opinion this release is not up par with BIOW, but nevertheless it is miles ahead of the whole Ukranian Black Metal scene, and yes that includes Nokturnal Mortum! Which is an almost impossible feat to accomplish!

In conclusion, some new ideas, but not as radically different as Songs Of Grief And Solitude or to a lower extent Autumn Aurora. The Drudkh sound remains rooted on the same NSBM, so go ahead, buy this one as the deluxe version is the one out now!