In a really flourishing Russian death doom scene, the debut full length of this band from Krasnoyarsk called Ruiny Vechnosti (Ruins Of Eternity), runs the serious risk of ending up in the background. This is not entirely due to the value of an album like Shopot Zabytykh Kholmov (The Whispers Of Forgotten Hills), which is anything but reprehensible, but rather to the fact that the competition, even internal, is strong and qualified; the work of the Siberian band is well above the sufficiency but it turns out to be the classic staging of the basic dictates of a genre, with the inclusion of all the necessary ingredients without ever appearing really cohesive. So it happens that the violin, element always peculiar although there are not a few bands that use this instrument, seems to clash more than amalgamate with the guitar riffs, the rhythmic base and the growl of the vocalist; to be on paper a melodic death doom, the album offers with the dropper moments capable of creating an adequate emotional flow, focusing more on a robust impact and that, very often, deviates towards a kind of avant-garde, convincing much more in the moments when the sound seems to get closer to the symphonic orchestral nuances of Italians Dark Lunacy. When it seems that the melody can finally take a complete form and take over, as for example in Ekho, is always missing that key moment capable of following up these insights, both by choice by the band is for a production that returns the sound in a way in my opinion too dry, with the keyboards that do not play the role of connection that would compete them in a formation structured in this way. That said, listening to Shopot Zabytykh Kholmov is anything but superfluous, but the comparison with Shallow Rivers or Откровения Дождя, for example, sees the good Ruiny Vechnosti still several steps below the level reached by the neighboring bands in the same stylistic segment.

2017 – Grimm Distribution