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Sivyj Yar - From The Dead Villages' Darkness review




Bandcamp music player
Reviewer:
8.9

40 users:
8.22
Band: Sivyj Yar
Album: From The Dead Villages' Darkness
Release date: September 2014


01. Blackened Fields Cry In The Distance
02. Now Only Abyss Hears Us
03. From The Dead Villages' Darkness
04. Distant Haze Was Arising
05. With The Birds Farewell Song
06. Silky Grasses Wilted

So 2015 starts and we're still talking about September 2014 stuff? Only if it's worth it. And trust me, this IS worth it by any means. Let me tell you about From The Dead Villages' Darkness by Sivyj Yar. For those of you capable of reading Cyrillic, Сивый Яр will look a lot more comfortable to pronounce. This is a one-man project from Russia with the mastermind Vladimir doing all instruments plus vocals. The music is pagan black metal, yet with many atmospheric elements and less typical pagan instruments like flutes during the harsher parts.

Apart from an intro and an outro track, four songs are featured on the record with an average playing time of about nine minutes. While band name and lyrics are Russian, the album and song titles are in English. The music offers a mixture of typical black metal parts with distorted guitars and shrieking vocals on the one hand, and on the other hand pagan atmospheric elements that often feature acoustic guitars and a mellow piano from time to time. This, together with the rather short playing time of the album, creates a unique experience when listening to the whole album from the start to the end. I could go on here talking about how awesome the merging of heavy and atmospheric music sounds, but most people will already get the idea as it's a common genre nowadays.

However, I feel like Sivyj Yar do it better than most other bands, extracting the true essence of pagan music. The songs feel like they were chosen carefully with a love for the details, maybe leaving out some ideas that didn't fit the concept in full. One can't really say which parts (like nature soundscapes and piano) were actually played or recorded by Vladimir, but that doesn't matter because the album is mixed so well that everything sounds like its only purpose was to be featured on From The Dead Villages' Darkness. The musician also knows how to play his instruments, showing a great feeling for the bass and drums while throwing in some guitar solos, too.

The product is something that is worth sparing some time for, maybe with a glass of whiskey or wine in candlelight shine at night. In simpler words, it is special. Something that can be found only a few times per year and for me personally it is one of the best atmospheric albums of 2014 I have heard yet. Recommended for anyone, as it's quite an easy start for beginners of the genre, yet able to satisfy even the most advanced fans.


Rating breakdown
Performance: 9
Songwriting: 9
Originality: 8
Production: 10

Written by Windrider | 02.01.2015




Comments page 2 / 2

Comments: 32   Visited by: 236 users
24.02.2015 - 20:49
Rating: 9
MHShokuhi

Just wow, an unforgettable experience and really liked the melodies and sounds, i could feel the feelings of every track
thanks for the review Windrider, i won't find this without it and i would miss such a masterpiece.
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Shake the silence and hear what it say ~In Flames
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11.11.2015 - 21:34
Marcus
Doit Like Bernie
Written by M C Vice on 06.01.2015 at 09:38

It took a while to figure out what it was reminding me of ... Austere

You're a damn genius, Been listening to this and their new album and had some voice in the back of my head bugging the shit out of me saying "HEY HEY this sounds familiar." Austere it is. Spot on.
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