text: Dawid Krosnia
Drudkh / Grift
Зраджені сонцем / Hägringar (split)
Season of Mist
September 16th, 2016
Both bands they were teasing us for a while now with this collaboration. Season of Mist first posted on their Youtube channel the Drudkh song, Його двадцять четверта весна (His Twenty-Fourth Spring). If you know the band’s previous recordings you’d be much more appreciative of this song. I think this track is a testament to what they’ve done before. Drudkh is Drudkh, they’ve worked really hard to establish themselves over the last fourteen years. They are not going to change their style for anyone. This song is a continuation of the atmospheric black metal beauty straight from the hearts of the proud Ukrainian lads.
A month later Season of Mist posted Grift – Källan (The Source). After Grift’s debut album, Syner, I was really waiting with anticipation to hear what they’d do next. In this case, no disappointments either. Flawless recording. This song is like a story that doesn’t have a happy ending. There is misery and death at the road. After these two presented by the label songs, it was a waiting game, until now. The other two songs that are included on this split are Осінь в сепії (Autumn in Sepia) by Drudkh and Cirkeln (The Circle) by Grift. Once again, it’s hard to say anything else about those two songs then, perfection, highly skilled musicianship, inventional and honest piece of music.
It’s worth mentioning that lyrical concept of Drudkh both songs is based on two different poems by Ukrainian artists from the post-WWI era. Grift wrote their own lyrics that are simply moving and touching. I’ve connected with them immediately. Just to give an example, ‘…What controls my mind has now re- formed into a rootless cry in the night…Every nightmare gives me a bit of amazement that continually defy the darkness…’ or “…A life should be sacrificed to the forces we did not know existed. A world to be born out of the tangle of delusions…’. This split acts like a spiritual journey. The circle of life and the circle of four seasons we can experience each year, as beautiful as it sounds, it will lead us to the only certain thing in our lives which is death. Amazing and uplifting production!
THE GOAT TAVERN 