The Polish band Gurthang, although they were formed at the beginning of the decade, have more than twenty releases scattered among singles, ep, split compilations and full lengths. Of the latter, Shattered Echoes is the fourth in the series, and presents us with a band of good depth and certainly able to handle with competence the proposed genre. The black doom of the band from Lublin is rather tetragonous in its progression, entrusting to wrapping slow parts the variations on a theme often written with an eye to Behemoth, but taking care precisely to insert a doom component with the intent to break in part the usual plot. A partial element of discontinuity are also the clean vocals, not always in focus but functional enough, and everything goes so to compose a convincing picture, although without making the listener jerk on the chair. In the end, the best songs are those that maintain a menacing aura without pressing too much on the accelerator, whose emblem is the remarkable central couple My Salvation / Departed: in particular, the first of the two turns out to be the fulcrum of the album thanks to its relatively catchy trend, which makes its salient passages well memorable. As for the rest, Gurthang do their job at their best, thanks to a valuable work that stands on an average level for what concerns the rest of the tracklist. Shattered Echoes turns out to be an album that can widely satisfy those who already appreciate the sounds expressed by the fertile Polish extreme scene.

2017 – Cimmerian Shade Recordings