Year: 2025
Label: Crypt of Black Fog
Rating: 8,4 / 10
Last year, having said everything he wanted to say with ДО СКОНУ, Maxim "Varagian" closed the project. Obviously, it's not forever, but at the moment ДО СКОНУ is inactive. Before that, Maxim recorded a large number of new tracks, which eventually formed "Ritual of Transition". He performed all the parts on his own, without using a studio, and only the drums were recorded by Gionata Potenti (a hyperactive drummer from Italy, a member of DARVAZA, FROSTMOON ECLIPSE, DEATHROW, MOLOCH, SHADOWS GROUND and many other bands).
Let me remind the reader that the previous album of ДО СКОНУ ("... and Darkness Was over the Surface of the Deep") disappointed me a little. It was high-quality, very angry and fast Black Metal, but one hundred percent typical. And this is the last thing you expect from Maxim, because there is always some "zest" in his releases. "Ritual of Transition" immediately shows that this will not happen again. You can already tell from the first tracks that this is a very diverse, musically rich album. With the ease of an adult composer (after all, more than 20 years of experience!) Maxim smoothly moves from machine-gun anger to dramatic leads, and then to a sweeping mid-tempo, and then to the familiar mid-tempo poison, and then to almost French melodic grandiosity, and then to echoes of traditional Heavy Metal, and then spreads the wings of mighty darkness a la DISSECTION... etc.
Thanks to the interesting (and very good!) sound, all the songs, despite the variety, feel like parts of a wholesome picture. For example, the rolling hit "A Mystical Understanding of the Shadows Cave" (I love songs where the guitar sings like that!) is radically different in style from the neighboring "Valley of Emerald Crystals", but it doesn't sound like a collection of tracks from different eras. Although it is quite possible that they were actually written at different times.
The only thing that is (once again) missing from the album are those long drawn-out "ritual" fragments with raspy vocals and journeys through the microcosm, which were actually the basis of ДО СКОНУ records up to and including “The Great Awakening...”. In my opinion, it would've been a good move to put a track in this style on the last album. But even without that, there's more than enough interesting stuff here. The album lasts almost 54 minutes, and every track, including the last one, is worthy of close attention. This is not the standard case for the modern scene when, after a brisk start, there are five fillers and a final boring “epic”. Maxim really tried to choose the very best songs for this final record. The last track is a Ukrainian-language version of the song "Dark sky of the Carpathians” from the mini album "Snake Circle". I'm not 100% sure, but it seems that this is the first track in the history of ДО СКОНУ performed in the Ukrainian language. A very rare case, one way or another.
It only now occurred to me that perhaps the diversity of the album was caused precisely by the desire to show ДО СКОНУ in all its manifestations. Therefore, it is a "Ritual of Transition" I can say with confidence that this is my favorite album of the band right now.
The album was released on CD by Heidens Hart, but I am one of the hundred of owners of the cassette edition from my friends Crypt of Black Fog. This edition has a cool alternative cover made by Vaiug Art. As usual, CoBF guys spared no effort and money for a high-quality J-card, where you can find all the lyrics except the last one. Details on a video.
