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Second To Sun - The Walk review




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Reviewer:
8.4

16 users:
7.94
Band: Second To Sun
Album: The Walk
Release date: November 2018


01. We Are Not Alone
02. Black Lines
03. Home
04. From Outer Space
05. The Train 1702
06. The Owls
07. New World Order
08. To Live
09. We Are Alone

What has bigger, emptier forests than Norway? Russia. What has colder, frostier winters than Norway? Russia. Where did we go for our black metal in 2018? Well, a lot of places. Sweden for Funeral Mist, the US for None, Greece for Varathron, Iceland for, like, 20 bands? but also Russia.

The Walk feels like a tour de force through all of the possibilities afforded by black metal; so many styles are represented, backed up by one of the rawest and most furious deliveries I've heard this year. The instrumentals are so crisp and forceful that you could easily rile up a crowd at a hardcore show and choke-slam a bear into the pit. Second To Sun's first few albums were instrumental, which I assume is why the band seems so capable of sustaining an entire song through instrumentals alone, but I'm glad that vocalist Gleb Sysoev was brought into the fold, because his wicked retching adds a lot of malevolent feeling, as well as straight-up black metal cred. The sustain and vitriol that he coaxes out of his vocal cords counter the band's more melodic tendencies to draw more strength out of both the black metal and the nonblack metal sides of The Walk.

The Walk opens with "We Are Not Alone," a quintessentially creepy black metal lullaby if I've ever heard one. That minor scale riff is a pure black metal construction of the most classic variety, but the way those riffs echo in the background is a kind of evil that Second To Sun didn't steal from anyone else; it's a hypnotic suggestion of folk music, not because of its melody or instrumentation, but because of how ancient and eerie it feels, and how likely you are to see a coven of hooded figures emerging from a frozen, central Russian forest while playing that scale. The momentum of this first track carries through the rest of the album; each successive song, while based in black metal and showing off the frostbitten chops of Second To Sun, aims for something different from what the last track gave. "The Owls" ought to go down as one of the best individual tracks of 2018.

White peals of feedback speak of hardcore influences; soft, chilly synthesizers deliver an atmosphere from the atmosphere; laborious, expansive percussion trudges with the titanic of lethargy of post-metal (it's not "slow," it's just massive). You'll even hear a groovy pinch harmonic now and again to make you wonder who invited Zakk Wylde, and check "New World Order" for a variety of interesting breakdowns. With the high production values, violent performances, and ear for catchy riffs that Second To Sun bring to this album, The Walk could be an outstanding album even if it were just straight black metal - but I'm glad that it isn't, because the variety of flavors and subgenres touched on here make it a much more rewarding and lasting experience.


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





Written on 15.01.2019 by I'm the reviewer, and that means my opinion is correct.


Comments

Comments: 10   Visited by: 148 users
15.01.2019 - 06:17
Auntie Sahar
Drone Empress
You broke the no ratings front page chain

Russian black metal is usually pretty damn great though so I'm definitely inclined to give this a listen.
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I am the Magician and the Exorcist. I am the axle of the wheel, and the cube in the circle. “Come unto me” is a foolish word: for it is I that go.

~ II. VII
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15.01.2019 - 06:45
Rating: 8
ScreamingSteelUS
Editor-in-Chief
Written by Auntie Sahar on 15.01.2019 at 06:17

You broke the no ratings front page chain

It's my second or third time, too. That's my only real job around here.
----
"Earth is small and I hate it" - Lum Invader

I'm the Agent of Steel.
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15.01.2019 - 10:44
RaduP
CertifiedHipster
I guess we'll have to find a new trend other than not rating

from now I'll either rate albums a 2.0 or a 10.0
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Do you think if the heart keeps on shrinking
One day there will be no heart at all?
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15.01.2019 - 14:11
Rating: 8
ScreamingSteelUS
Editor-in-Chief
Written by RaduP on 15.01.2019 at 10:44

I guess we'll have to find a new trend other than not rating

from now I'll either rate albums a 2.0 or a 10.0

Okay, but I get to decide which.
----
"Earth is small and I hate it" - Lum Invader

I'm the Agent of Steel.
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15.01.2019 - 14:18
RaduP
CertifiedHipster
Written by ScreamingSteelUS on 15.01.2019 at 14:11

Written by RaduP on 15.01.2019 at 10:44

I guess we'll have to find a new trend other than not rating

from now I'll either rate albums a 2.0 or a 10.0

Okay, but I get to decide which.

Deal
----
Do you think if the heart keeps on shrinking
One day there will be no heart at all?
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15.01.2019 - 18:37
Bad English
Tage Westerlund
Actually swedish winter are much colder as Norwegian. Finnish to
Russia has capability. I know some of our masters inuslted Rus doom metal and solitude productions, but that country has capability to get higher in metal map. Moscow and Peter always are on meta map, other weird tows as well, not so often. I think rus metal problem is that bands has vkontakte and dont have so active facebook thing, and also that language, even translate thing fol turns away if things are not in English.
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Life is to short for LOVE, there is many great things to do online !!!

Stormtroopers of Death - ''Speak English or Die''
apos;'
[image]
I better die, because I never will learn speek english, so I choose dieing
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15.01.2019 - 22:30
nikarg

I enjoyed the music but the vocals are a bit over the top and kind of ruin it for me. I need to check out the previous instrumental stuff you mention.
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15.01.2019 - 22:56
FYA
Destroyer
They did the best Empreror cover ever.
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16.01.2019 - 19:29
Rating: 8
silenius

I like it alot, but the vocals are realy monotone and become a bit grating after a couple of spins. But thats just a minor detail.
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23.01.2019 - 23:25
Fallen Ghost
Craft Beer Geek
This is awesome! Fresh sounding black metal. Laughed at how they incorporated the Fort Boyard theme song midway into New World Order, that was pretty funny 😂
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