Year: 2024
Label: Заиндевевшая Рябина (cassette) / Der Schwarze Tod (CD)
Rating: 7,4 / 10
Today we're looking at a split of the new and old names of the Russian pagan / nordic blackened metal. The promising ALTWALD quartet (?) has appeared on the scene quite recently, and at the moment, apart from this split, it has only a demo and a live recording in its discography. The band is anonymous, but it looks like it's created by the experienced guys . Both tracks presented on split, of course, are strongly influenced by the ideas of BBH, the second track is even called "Kaldrad" and, obviosly, dedicated to him. However, fortunately, ALTWALD's music is quite independent. The song "Корнями духа" has a very bad text ("Но конец лишь не тот / Что у ублюдках в сердцах" sounds like a disaster in russian, believe me), but it offers an inspiring and intense musical journey with anxious tremolo parts and wonderful transitions to slow riffs and atmospheric synths in the vein of, for example, ВСПОЛОХ. This is by far the best track on the entire release. In "Kaldrad", the text is quite concise and very accurate, and the music works by the similar pattern, but has weaker dynamics. This song has a standard composition form, which has not changed since NITBERG / ВОЛКОТЕНЬ split. Which, however, is also not bad.
DJUR's return is a more interesting and important event. In 2010, the band released their only - and a very strong! - album, which didn't achieve the cult statys, but by combining the influence of KRISTALLNACHT and BEKHIRA with the nordic vibes made a very serious contribution to the formation of the modern musical and lyrical style of russian (and maybe partially Ukrainian - see the first records of ULVEGR) radical pagan metal. The participation of Kaldrad, who wrote the lyrics for three tracks, was also a kind of quality mark. Almost immediately, there was talk of a second album, and if I'm not mistaken, a demo of the new track got online, but in the end it didn't work out. It follows from the press release for “Rooted to Death” that DJUR's material was recorded earlier than ALTWALD. Maybe these songs were really meant for the second album. Musically, this is the same old DJUR: cold, mighty, sparky, biting and occasionally majestic, like the Northern Ocean, which foams and beats against the rocks under the wings of a furious blizzard. The only thing that disappointed me was the vocals. They sound tired and emotionless, and even the double vocal track doesn't help. Compared to what mr. Zorn demonstrated on "В потоках хаоса кровей" and in KRAHNHOLM, this is rubbish. DJUR's lyrics turned out to be more or less adequate, if you don't take grammatical errors into account (but let's blame those who added those lyrics to the Internet; maybe they just reptinted them wrongly).
The cassette edition of “Rooted to Death” is quite modest by the standards of Заиндевевшая Рябина label. Only 37 copies, good quality dubs with stickers, 3-panel J-card on a pro-printed thick paper. Unfortunately, no lyrics and credits inside. Interestingly, DJUR uses an art created by the brilliant artist Tern from Kharkiv - most likely, it has remained in the band's archives since the early 2010s. Details on a video.
English (UK) 
Крыўская