Year of release: 2018
Label: Barbatos Productions
Rating: 7,5 / 10
After the review of compilation of ULVKROS records I've been contacted by the author of the project. After the short correspondence, he provided the cassette of another of his offspring - ambient project VOŬČYJA SNY (Wolf's Dreams). He asked not to mention the link between ULVKROS and VOŬČYJA SNY. However, thanks to the posts in VK and some other web sites, everyone knows about it anyway, so I will not change anything.
VOŬČYJA SNY is inherently almost the same as ULVKROS. This project is not even trying to grab the stars from heaven, preferring traditional values, a hundred times tested. As ULVKROS was just plain old metal, saturated with national romanticism rather than national socialism, so VOŬČYJA SNY is absolutely canonical dark ambient in the spirit of the distant past. No delights, no authentic choirs invited from Polesian swamps, no crazy thematic experiments, "author's visions" and so on. Synthesizer and direct transference of the feelings - everything that you need. Dreamy-natural track names also leave no room for alternative interpretations.
I cannot call myself an expert on an archaic dark ambient, and indeed on any ambient, therefore, comparisons with other projects that are usual for any reviewer cannot be done here. I can only say that VOŬČYJA SNY doesn't feels like BURZUM, MORTIIS, various Tolkienists like THANGORODRIM, and even on WOJNAR. All these projects (except BURZUM) have a clearer and more spacious sound, but VOŬČYJA SNY brings to mind exactly the picture that is captured on the cover: a dark night, illuminated only by a pale moon. Anyone who has walked on such nights away from civilization and its dead lights knows this unusual sensation when a vertical band of unlimited space remains in sight, but the darkness around seems to squeeze you. VOŬČYJA SNY conveys this effect with the help of a sound sustained in a medium-low tone (sorry for a very amateur definition). The music itself is beautiful, there is no place for “evil” or noise in it, it’s just that this sound makes it dark as night. It should be noted that it is this decision that endows the album with the genuine spirit of Krywia which many of us are looking for in every new underground release coming out in this country. Other Belarusian ambient projects related to the metal scene - for example, ZMROCZNY DOL or TARTAVARA - sound closer to the early MORTIIS, and therefore shoot past the target.
“Vandroŭka ...” was recorded in 2015 and released in 2018 on cassettes at Barbatos Productions. The circulation is 88 copies. Unfortunately, the release turned out to be even more low-budget than ULVKROS. One-sided inlays are printed on plain paper with a home-made color printer, so you can't see shit on the cover. The inlay does not contain any useful information except logos and track titles. Regrettably - as is the case with ULVKROS, the project deserves more (at least printing on gloss paper, gosh dang it). You can buy a cassette from the publisher, and if you still want to look at it first, see more details on the video.
English (UK) 
Крыўская