Band's List Pagan Black Drudkh Estrangement

Drudkh is a band who often get heavily criticized for not changing sound much between each albums, most of their albums have this annoying tendency to bleed into one long affair, no differentiation between them. It’s probably my only problem with this band however as the music they put out is usually of a high quality, it’s nice and atmospheric, got a great forest feeling to it. The music is good enough for me to look past the lack of diversity in this bands catalog, because if I want great atmospheric folk inspired black metal Drudkh are one of the best bands doing it. Of course however, when a band puts out the same album for much of their career you begin to wonder about when the music will run dry. When the quality stops and repetition becomes a curse. This dip in quality comes in the form of Estrangement, easily the weakest Drudkh release I've heard. Whilst it obviously doesn't differ from Drudkh’s usual sound, song writing is where this album suffers. The songs are quite boring, they have an annoying tendency to drag on, making them seem longer than they are. Whilst some individual riffs and other moments are pretty cool the overall delivery comes off as incredibly apathetic and languid. It feels watered down, diluted, there’s not a strong enough edge to the music. Sure it’s melancholic as hell, a riff in Where Horizon Ends is beautifully depressive and emotional so that’s most certainly a plus. But really, it’s a fairly diluted Drudkh album. The atmosphere is more melancholic, more down to earth, not as ethereal and otherworldly. The riffs have been diluted, stripped down, they come across as atmospherically flat and fairly uninteresting. The vocals are sparsely deployed as well, meaning that it falls upon the boring guitars to emulate the (uninteresting) atmosphere.

Estrangement suffers a great deal on a lot of fronts. The music itself is frankly quite boring, yet at times there are some good moments. The last track in particular is really good; it’s quite emotional, suitably melancholic and highly atmospheric. It’s also short as well, which is a plus. Drudkh is a band who tends to meander about when playing long songs. There musical ideas work better when applied in short and effective doses rather than being stretched out for long period of times. Whilst, Drudkh can undoubtedly create effective long songs, Microcosm is a good example which contains some fantastic lengthy songs. Estrangement is an altogether different story; the ideas aren’t flexible enough to allow for a lengthy delivery. The guitar riffs not interesting enough to be repeated into oblivion. Where atmosphere is concerned it’s okay, it seems that Drudkh are incapable of creating a pathetically weak atmosphere so I’ll give them credit for that. However, the atmosphere on Estrangement isn't as powerful as their releases prior. It still carries a forest vibe with it but it comes across as generally flat and uninspired. The wall of sound effect the guitars carry is especially weak, it’s not as hazy and atmospheric as other Drudkh releases. It’s quite banal and bland, not really adding much to the music and just generally sounding weak and diluted.

Drudkh is a band who has become identified primarily by their atmosphere (at least for this reviewer). They’re very effective at creating hypnotic and powerful music, Drudkh come across as very trance inducing and ethereal due to the levels of repetition present within the music. However Estrangement falls flat on its face. The music just isn't interesting enough to be repeated for any length of time, guitar riffs come and go without leaving much of an impact. It’s overall largely forgettable, uninspired and quite atmospherically flat. Not much of anything happens in Estrangement, it’s disinterested, tired, apathetic and what other synonyms for tired you can think of, because that’s what Estrangement largely is; tired. There’s no real stand out moments on here, whilst the overall quality is consistently okay, just being okay isn't going to cut it. Only The Wind Remembers My Name is pretty good though, it has a nice solo and the riffs are quite emotional and atmospheric. Also it’s the shortest song on here so it doesn't have time to meander about with trying to find it’s footing. If Drudkh would have kept to the short and sweet songs this album would get a higher rating from me. But as it currently stands with the bloated song lengths and generally uninteresting ideas, Estrangement becomes a bit of a taxing listen. There are undoubtedly moments of excellence on Estrangement, they’re usually buried beneath a layer of repetition that just doesn't go anywhere. For what it’s worth it’s not terrible, it’s just not that exciting either.