Koldovstvo - Ни царя, ни бога (Ni Tsarya, Ni Boga)

There are few genres of music that contain so many anonymous bands. But in black metal, it is an accepted and normal thing that you may not know who is in a band you like, or where they are from, or if "they" are actually a "they" or a single person.

Removing these tangible people from the music allows the listener unprecedented latitude to experience the music and engage with it in any way they see fit. Freed of the preconceptions of spurious comparison (to previous albums, to different personnel, etc.) the music as presented can be experienced more directly.

While it would be silly to say the band were from Russia, there is definitely a serious Slavic and Russian history and folklore vibe going on here.

The name of the band, Koldovsto, is the Russian word for "witchcraft" and the album title is the Russian for No King, No God, a sublte play on the phrase every good Russian anarchist knows - Нет богов, нет мастеров (Net bogov, net masterov) No Gods, No Masters.

Couple that with the cover of the album - An 1864 painting by Konstantin Flavitsky depicting the legend that Princess Tarakanova, a pretender to the throne, was killed by a 1777 flood, and you have some fertile fields in which to grow any number of theories about the band, their origin, and their motives/politics.

It also helps that this is grade A Prime atmospheric black metal of the enigmatic Slavic nostalgia type - a thing that I am really in to.

Comments

Agriculture - Agriculture

a While calling themselves ''ecstatic" black metal, Agriculture traipses along the line between atmo-black and blackgaze pretty adroitly. I am not as head over heels as some of the metal press I have been reading about them (like Rolling Stone for instance), but I think they have a good thing going here. They remind me of Vattnet Viskar sort of, and I am going to withhold judgement until I can see them live to really decide. That said, this is an album that has been in heavy rotation at my house since its release. Agriculture by Agriculture

葬尸湖 (Zuriaake) - 孤雁 (Gu Yan)

The thing I continue to love about this album, now five years after it came out, is how unabashedly Chinese it is. For me, there is nothing quite so nice as taking something from somewhere else and adapting it to your particular circumstance, whether it be food, music, or whatever else. The world is filled with terrible Nordic imitators, so I am always really stoked to see bands who lean in hard to their local scene / culture / roots. This is probably one of the albums that really sent me down that path, and I will always be indebted to Zuriaake for that. Gu Yan is an epic, sprawling, even cinematic, album, and should appeal to fans of bands like Wolves in the Throne Room and Primordial . Musically, there are serious elements of Summoning here, but most of this album is utterly unique to Zuriaake and the atmosphere they build is entirely their own. Traditional instruments back up the backbone of the sound, not as a gimmick, but as the bedrock on which the whole edifice rests. ...

Valais - Valais

I love the pathological hatred of self-promotion that defines a lot of underground black metal, but it sure does make it hard to write about new bands some times. I know absolutely nothing about this band other than that they are from Dublin Ireland, and they play the sort of goblin vocal, snare heavy ritual occult black metal I like to listen to in those rare moments where I have the house to myself. Three main songs, with two shorter interludes, identified by roman numerals and nothing else. The interludes are piano and acoustic guitar bits that add a deeper dimension to what might otherwise be too much onslaught of 90mph diabolism. I personally am pretty into this as an End of Year List candidate. Definitely one of the best albums I've heard in May. Valais by Valais

Trumpet of Amdusias

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