CDDG4T1-001

Anton Belov, despite his still young age, already has a rather full-bodied musical past behind him with his Kauan, a project born in 2007 and guinto, with Pirut, its fifth long-distance episode. Luumikuuro‘s black-sprinkled folk doom has been transformed over the course of the various releases, changing in moods and colors until it reached the near-perfect form exhibited in this latest work, which unfolds under the banner of a post metal with dark progressive overtones and with marked morriconean reflections, while keeping intact the musical foundations of the beginnings. In short, what can be called an ideal mix, which Anton arrived at, probably not by chance, just at the time when, his artistic partnership with Lubov Mushnikova having ended, Kauan became a full-fledged band composed of five elements: it is difficult to determine whether and how much the new members may have contributed in the compositional phase, for sure one feels in listening to the album the feeling of dealing with a group of cohesive musicians, each specialized in his own instrument, besides all enhanced by a crystal-clear production. Pirut is a relatively short work (less than forty minutes) that runs along a single track divided for convenience into eight movements and represents a melancholic journey through the many facets of the human psyche; its birth was marked by the fall of an asteroid fragment not far from the studios during the mixing phase, and a trace of this event can be found, if not from a purely compositional point of view, both in the beautiful cover and in a sample (in track I) that reproduces the breaking of glass caused by the air displacement. A poignant theme recurs in the different phases of the work, now interpreted by the notes a piano, now by the viola, now by female vocals, all embedded in a sound that allows little room for vocal or instrumental harshness; the long composition shines for the balance between its various souls, the ambient folk, which recalls the most reflective moments of the best Falkenbach, the progressive, which finds its sublimation in the splendid track III and the melodic orchestral, in which the influences of Morriconean matrix are vented. It is difficult to do better for anyone attempting to approach this subject matter, and the band, now based in Kiev, with a test of such a level, would really deserve to break out of the comfortable as well as limiting shell of cult musical reality. I don’t know if Pirut is better than Aava Tuule Maa, which until now was considered Kauan‘s compositional peak, it is certainly different, certainly more mature and without a shadow of a doubt a dutiful listen for those who appreciate more reflective atmospheres and don’t disdain to be lulled by the dreamy scores created by an absolute level musician like Anton Belov.

2013 – Blood Music