Year: 2022
Label: Season of Mist
Rating: 7 / 10
I got delayed with the review of the new DRUDKH album very much, as I was waiting for the disc, but perhaps it's okay, since a long pause allows me to evaluate it more adequately. The announcement of “Всі належать ночі” was made at a very tragic time, when it was unknown whether Kharkiv musicians would even be alive at the moment of release of their 12th full-length record, and, of course, this affected perception. Fortunately, the darkest cloud has passed DRUDKH, and today the band continues to exist, actively helping to protect its homeland from the subhumans.
Taking into account these circumstances, the first desire that arises is to write how aptly the Ukrainian geniuses conveyed the feelings of their people during the war and to give the album the highest rating – that is, to repeat what most of the profile press did. But I must be objective and admit that, in my opinion, there was not enough genius for this album, and it would be wrong to tie it to the theme of war. The music for “Всі належать ночі” was in creation since 2017, and the album was recorded in the early summer of 2021. Unlike "Борозна обірвалася", which was released in 2015 in the ”hot phase“ of the first invasion and very convincingly conveyed the disturbing atmosphere of those times, the new album is primarily a sequel to "They Often See Dreams About the Spring". And not too successful.
2018' album, compared to its predecessor and the trilogy of splits, was marked by a certain simplification of the sound, as well as a perfect harmony of lyrics, design and music. The recording dedicated to the executed poets of Ukraine made you deeply feel the black hopelessness of that nightmarish era, where the only lights of hope were stars in the sky. Of course, you had to understand the full context, and not just listen to the fucking mp3 with the digital cover.
“Всі належать ночі” tends to move in more or less the same direction. From a musical point of view, the albums have strong similarities. The theme changed to a more generalized one about night and darkness, and the aesthetics turned to retro with all these inkwells, candles, old books, cold autumn winds and wooden mansions – images, familiar to us from OLD SILVER KEY and WINDSWEPT. In terms of atmosphere and sensations, the album is nearly perfect. This is the darkest work in DRUDKH's discography, incredibly dark and tragic. An acoustic fragment accompanied by a piano in the last track, and then another fragment, already independent, in the finale, are the part of the list of the most outstanding moments in the work of Kharkiv musicians. If you perceive music from purely emotional point, then “Всі належать ночі” will leave you with a most powerful impression.
However, if you listen to the songs more carefully, the problems begin. Unfortunately, they are not very interesting. In fact, only in the first and last tracks there are a number of segments that attract attention from a compositional point of view. The two tracks in the middle leave only some very general memories, as if they were ambient. It's amazing that this happens against the background of a large number of references to past albums, especially to the brilliant "Microcosmos". Characteristic changes in rhythms and transitions to pure bass and acoustics occur more than once or twice, but this does not always work. Even a music-lyrics-design monolith doesn't help, since this time the connection isn't as strong as it was before.
Don't get me wrong, DRUDKH is still a top level band, but, probably, Roman Saenko, in his creative impulse, stretched a little too thin between his many projects, and as a result, he failed to preserve an unshakable compositional quality for everything at once. “Всі належать ночі” is not a bad album, but perhaps the weakest in DRUDKH's discography.
The physical edition on CD has the form of a digipack with a booklet of 16 pages. The design again was made by Eduard Novikov. Details on a video.
English (UK) 
Крыўская