Drudkh - Microcosmos
June 21 2009 at 09:38:32 PM
Two minutes, 15 seconds worth of instrumentals. That’s the most interesting music here, bar none. “Days That Passed” is pulled piece by piece from the pages of Robert E. Howard. Droning harmonium, spitting cymbal, war drum pounded with twin bear paw. It’s the barbarian giving some sorceress his Savage Sword in an ember-lit hump chamber littered with pelts, amulets, critter skulls. I can almost smell the saddle leather, the expired wine, the witch pussy.
And then the next 37 minutes are spent worthlessly on the big ol’ bore, which is to say it’s 37 minutes of the driving, emotive, totally fucking monotonous “Black Metal,” that’s really not so different from the music Isis thinks it’s creating. To wit: Extended instrumental passages with little-to-no variation on thematic; crescendo-less crescendo; milquetoast riffs a helluva lot less convincing than, say, Windir, at harnessing “roots music” and meshing it with a genre that nowadays rarely edifies or acknowledges its own roots, preferring silly detours with psychedelia and bogus “agrarian” emocore.
Those “hip” to the anguished cries from the Hate Forest guy who’s “channeling” his forefather’s anguish, or something as precious as that, will find much shit to roll around in, as Thurios – or whatever the guy’s name is – gives each song the same AGGH! delivery while probably prattling on about flora, fauna, bovine, magik, a big goddamned pot of hare stew, steel, fire, the vernal equinox, etc. It’s a big pill to take up the rectum and I’ve always been a fan of waiting out sickness anyway.
[Stewart Voegtlin]
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By the way, thanks for permanently ruining the intro for me. Never again will I be able to listen to the opening track without expecting the voice of Mako Iwamatsu to break in at any moment with the tale of a young Cimmerian boy.