Нахристихрящях

The album begins with a disturbing bass/synth intro, spanning a little over a minute, shortly before exploding into a maelstrom of unholy, violent moods and progressions. While a parallel can certainly be made between Lucifugum and Dub Buk, or Nokturnal Mortum (especially considering the closeness of bands within the Ukrainian black metal circle), Lucifugum is by far the most vicious, feral, and primal band of the bunch, foregoing good production and beautiful keyboard sequences for a boiling, collective sound in which individual instruments are hard to distinguish. Needless to say, this album is worth far more than the sum of its parts.

Standing only 5-8 meters away, one will hear mostly white noise, with the occasional symphonic melody, and something that resembles a human voice, just barely. As with most black metal, good headphones are required for the full experience. The vocals are a low, raspy growl (that are actually somewhat easy to do, if you are lucky enough to speak Russian), with lyrics focusing on glory, victory, and a rejection of Judeochristian ideals, as well as nature and mythology. As archetypal of black metal as that may sound, the capacity of the Russian language aesthetic is far more suited for these topics than English. Faunus' voice is ugly and evil, from any context other than the one that this album creates. Within the parameters here, however, it is glorious, dictating not only a savage thirst for blood, but a tale of glory and honor.

These sentiments are true for the rest of the album as well. The layering is consistent from song to song, with guitars and bass playing a combination of simple riffs that germinate a wall of noise, yet a fluid and adaptable one. Drums pound, but are mixed low enough as to affect the psyche of the listener subconsciously more than consciously - in other words, the beats are simple and steady, especially the double-bass drum, but are not loud enough to take attention from the rest of the music. It is interesting to listen to songs repeatedly, for specific instruments, but one must physically divert much attention to focus on the drums. This is not a detriment, though, since drums are merely secondary in this compilation - the primary melodies are delivered by the synths and keyboards, which orchestrate the glorious and mystical worlds created here by Lucifugum. They are reminiscent of medieval tunes of war, and are glory incarnate.

Various ambient sounds are used on this album as well, including wolf howls in "Volki (Chast II) (Wolves (Part II))." This masterpiece ends with the title track - Nachristikhrjaschakh (On the Sortilage of Christianity), the last 40 seconds of which are the sounds of burning (flesh of slain Christians, I assume), and the sounds of seagulls and vultures crying as they hover above the dead, awaiting the flames to cease, to peck out their blinded eyes. My synopsis: buy, or download this - if you like bands in the vein of Abigor, Dub Buk, Nokturnal Mortum, or Summoning (though I think these comparisons are valid, I doubt that it is fair to say that Lucifugum resemble the aforementioned bands in anything more than certain aesthetic qualities), and do not mind poor production, you will enjoy this album.