Year of release: 2020
Label: Werewolf Promotion
Rating: 8 / 10
Back to STWORZ's discography, which has recently been supplemented with great new releases. Today we will look closer at the split with the Russian project СИВЫЙ ЯР, released on Werewolf Promotion.
I wrote about СИВЫЙ ЯР more than once, but the last time it was a long time ago, so it probably makes sense to repeat myself. Undoubtedly, СИВЫЙ ЯР deserves respect. The author of the project worked hard, managing to get out of such an underground swamp that many cannot even imagine. At the same time, his music really became much better without losing its identity. The early recordings of СИВЫЙ ЯР were rather funny, but had a recognizable style. This style has survived to this day, and the strange, crippled curvature of СИВЫЙ ЯР's music has turned into what can be called a peculiar approach. This approach led СИВЫЙ ЯР to Avantgarde Music, and I call it a huge success for a project that started at tiny Yar Productions, if memory serves.
Themes explored by СИВЫЙ ЯР constantly revolves around nature and dead villages; there are countless numbers of them in Russia. I always got the impression that the musician really understands what he is singing about; that is, this is a man who has lived long away from civilization, who walked a lot of overgrown roads and watched pictures of real decline. Not just another hipster who looks for "chtonic stuff" in his grandmother's cellar at weekends and gets paralysisis when he sees a heap of horse apples. You can feel it in the music of СИВЫЙ ЯР. On split, it is wonderful, there is almost nothing to complain about. Both tracks are full stories with beginnings, climaxes and finals. Each contains a lot of technical findings and some great melodic fragments. A musician not only knows how to play, he knows how to play in his own way. Obviously, this is the result of a lot of work, which has nothing to do with traditional music education.
But with vocals, everything is as usual. In so many years, Vladimir from СИВЫЙ ЯР did not understood that he SHOULDN'T yell in hysterical voice like an eunuch blown up on a mine. No personal offense intended, but I sincerely believe that everyone who uses such faggot squeals should be sent to the same ghetto with all the depressive rabble and tortured with their own voices until they get what they did wrong. I don't give a damn if some Brazilian kid with cut hands rips his throat out in his bedroom project, but when good music is spoiled by these vocals it's already a crime. One more thing - sometimes the music starts to sound too life-affirming, which goes against the main theme and aesthetics.
STWORZ with his three tracks continues to develop the sound of the new era, which he entered with the album "Moj Kraj ...". STWORZ's music becomes softer, more atmospheric and deep, and this is the best that could happen to it, since the previous version of the sound has exhausted itself. It has more parts for acoustic and semi-acoustic guitars, and the rhythm guitar has improved a little. STWORZ in all its guises was romantic, but if at first it was the romance of forests and the pagan spirit, and then of natural cycles, now it is something sensually nostalgic, more personal, easily understood by those who spend most of their time in nature and see divine in its every manifestation. As usual, STWORZ manages to give its metal the character of folk music without using folk instruments and without slipping into parody. STWORZ is still pagan metal, which now stands several levels higher than what is usually designated by this concept. Something similar could be played today by Pagan metallers of the mid-early 2000s, if they had the talent and at least a grain of the hard work and conscientiousness that Wojsław shows. Like СИВЫЙ ЯР, STWORZ has also developed his own style of music, improved his technique and achieved what an underground musician should really strive for. Only Wojsław also can sing. The first and second STWORZ songs on this split are full of beauty, but the third is better than them due to its dynamics and melancholy.
As a result, the split leaves a wonderful and holistic impression, which would have been simply excellent if it were not for the vocals of СИВЫЙ ЯР. It is released in digipack format with a booklet in a pocket. The booklet is decorated with old village photographs (gloomy ones in SIVY YAR, nostalgic and joyful in STWORZ). Unfortunately, there are no lyrics, only poetic excerpts. Details on a video.
English (UK) 
Крыўская