Review: RAVEN THRONE – I miortvym snicca zołak…

Year of release: 2018
Label: Non Serviam Records
Rating: 8,9 / 10

It seems that Belarusians RAVEN THRONE finally found themselves after many years of experiments. These experiments came to an end after "Doctrine of Hatred" (2014), and already the next year RAVEN THRONE released a masterpiece single "Biaskoncy snieh Času" (2016) that defined the new style of the band: mid-tempo and atmospheric metal in Belarusian language, that uses only the visual and sound aesthetics of Black Metal. The real manifesto of this style was the album "Šliacham zabytych", which turned out to be really successful (within the framework of our underground, of course) both in terms of creativity and in terms of support from the audience. Together with the concert activity, it brought RAVEN THRONE to the rather strong Dutch label Non Serviam Records, which will release the new album of Belarusians on May 2nd - "I miortvym snicca zołak…"

This album was ready for quite some time, and it was conceived even earlier. As far as I can remember, by the time of the release of "Šliacham zabytych" in 2016, the work on the musical part of "I miortvym snicca zołak ..." was almost completed. hen there was a problem with the design, which dragged on for a good six months. In the end, the band decided not to make anything fancy - insides of the digipack are decorated similarly to the cover: photographs of snow-covered forests with a cold and mournful dark-blue filter superimposed on them. Such design, even if in many respects it repeats "Šliacham zabytych", perfectly combines with the music of the band and the idea of ​​the new album. RAVEN THRONE has long been under the ideological influence of DRUDKH, and on "I miortvym snicca zołak ..." they decided to play a trick similar to the Ukrainians - to sing about their native land using poems of Belarusian poets. Anyone who is at least superficially familiar with the Belarusian literature, knows that 90% of our literature is gloomy, dreary and depressive. Perfect for RAVEN THRONE. The band is not really good at wicked high-speed songs, but they are kings of mid tempo. And the lyrics of Charot, Dubovki, Duditsky perfectly fit this tempo.