Місяць помсти

Dub Buk is one of the Ukrainian melodic pagan black metal bands with which I'm not so familiar, probably just due to a lack of concentrated efforts to buy their music. I did however dig up this old demo along with their second one and each time I listen to this it makes me want to delve deeper into Dub Buk's discography.

This four song demo is often overlooked by most pagan black metal fans and it's a shame since the music here is easily among the very best of the genre. Musically this is very melodic black metal which relies heavily on keyboards and melodic riffs but don't be fooled, this is absolutely nothing like other melodic black metal bands such as Dimmu Borgir. This somewhat resembles Nokturnal Mortum's work during the Goat Horns period but there are some marked differences. Moon of Revenge sounds much more consistent and the songs tend to resemble each other (although there's more than enough variation to keep it interesting).

Each song is based on building a heavy and dark atmosphere of repetitive drumming in the vein of classic black metal although with added technicality in some parts while solid riffs form the backbone of the song. The intense and ever-present use of keyboards is also essential in the demo’s sound, working with the guitars and drums to create and unnervingly dark feeling throughout the whole thing.

The vocals also deserve mentioning since they're quite varied and remarkable. First of all there are the standard yet very effective black metal shrieks through most of the album, another of the invaluable ingredients towards the creation of the whole atmosphere on this demo which there are also the beautiful and epic clean female chanting vocals, such as on the last and longest song, Cruelty, which almost takes up half of the demo's total time and which is a complete masterpiece of an epic song.

The production is good, pretty standard high quality which can be expected of the better Eastern European pagan black metal bands while retaining a certain fuzziness essential to the whole feeling of darkness and desolation present in the genre. Every instrument can be heard well enough and on the same level as the others, nothing being overly drowned-out or too loud in the mix.

Moon of Revenge is definitely a worthy release, an excellent demo from a strong band and while I can't judge if it’s their best release since I’ve only heard their first two demos this one is certainly superior to their second one (Zasynaye Ta U Vi Sni Pomyraye), which it seems inspired the musical direction the band took afterwards, so Moon of Revenge may very well be their best release. Best release or not it's still a very underrated and little-known demo which is definitely worth hearing by anyone who likes pagan and melodic black metal.