Urskek is a project created by three Swedish musicians (David Flood, Erik Karlsson and Oskar Karklsson, in fact the line-up of the dissolved Monachus) and an English (the vocalist Alex CF) with the intent to pay homage to the animated film Dark Crystal; Thra, title of the album, is in fact the planet on which take place the events of the characters (including precisely urSkeks) created forty years ago, among others, by Jim Henson, who the less young will remember as the inventor of the legendary Muppets. The band offers in this ep a little more than half an hour of excellent atmospheric post metal sludge, always tinged with an epic aura but also quite robust when needed, as it happens especially in the second track Trial By Stone, from the final dragging; in the economy of the work, however, appears preponderant the opening track The Age Of Wonder, a quarter of an hour of music that pierces the veil on the potential of Urskek, sometimes not far in approach from Abandon or Walk Through Fire (which was part of their first line-up the drummer Flood), thanks to the vocal interpretation of great impact of Alex CF. What makes the band’s sound more peculiar is just that cinematic inspiration from which is taken cue for melodic and at the same time evocative inserts, elements that occupy almost entirely the final Prophecy, in which is used the clean voice , apart from a dramatic central break. Thra is really a nice album, intense, rocky and well performed, but it remains to be seen if Urskek will turn out to be an impromptu project or instead they will want to follow up their already very convincing debut.

2022 – Independent