Year: 2023
Label: Werewolf Promotion
Rating: 8,1 / 10
ZAKLON's seventh album appeared, as always, suddenly. The band seems to have changed it's form again: the concert line-up that recorded the previous ”Zychod" is either broke up pr went on a long-term creative vacation, since only Temnarod and drummer Siarhiei “Def” were engaged in recording “U Niabyt”. I do not know to what extent the opportunity to perform live with a full line-up influenced Temnarod's work, but there are some quite obvious changes in music. If "Zychod“ was an extremely intense record (4 songs out of 6 with blast beats), then ”U Niabyt" appeals to an old familiar longing that drags you into the swamp.
"U Niabyt" is a very guitar-oriented album. All these fashionable harps, tribal drums and other nordic fancy things are also a thing of the past. Which is very good, because I have always believed that the persistent attempts of our musicians to pull a Scandinavian owl on the globe of Belarus look ridiculous and only distance them from a much more important goal. Every song on the album has a central riff around which everything else is built. The arrangements consist of a variety of acoustic and semi-acoustic parts, as well as light ambient. There are even things that can be mistaken for guitar solos. Recently, after listening to old ZAKLON albums, I noticed that this approach was actually uncharacteristic of Temnarod before, since he created compositions more intuitively, weaving a pattern of Ragnarok tremolous ”squares" that clung to each other. Therefore, we can say that "U Niabyt" demonstrates a more mature approach, because each song here has its own clear musical idea. Thanks to this, the album, which turned out to be quite slow, does not sound boring at all. It is interesting to watch the development of music until the very instrumental finale.
ZAKLON's sound has made another leap in quality, which is especially clearly seen against the background of previous recordings. Lyrically, it's canonical ZAKLON with its images of dilapidation and decay, there are no surprises here. The graphic component is also classic: lovely swamps and lyrics above them. Details on a video.
English (UK) 
Крыўская