Atmosphere

Kladovest, a Ukrainian band I've never previously heard of other than being a side project of Thurios (Drudkh, Astrofaes, etc), released this full length earlier this year (2011) and I've just recently gotten the chance to listen to it. Something about this album (what could it be?) leads me to believe that the artists were trying to create some sort of atmosphere, and they do succeed in their efforts somewhat.

'Autumn Breath' is by far the most "atmospheric" song. 'Fragments of Sky' is also very atmospheric and repetitive like 'Autumn Breath'. The other songs, 'Absurd' and 'The Tree', remind me heavily of Astrofaes and would sound more familiar to a black metal fan. But it's the first two songs mentioned that do the job here for me, comprised of stretched out/repeated guitar melodies that sound layered. The drumming is slower-than-normal black metal-style drumming and fits the atmosphere. The opening melody of 'Autumn Breath' really does drop you right in the forest, something like the picture on the album cover. I find myself going back and listening to that song more than the others, but overall this is a solid black metal album and it has Thurios on vocals so you can't really go wrong.