Shishkin Les - Универс - review
Shishkin Les - Универс - review
Tracklist
01. 1/1 A review by
RaduP June 25, 2018
Шишкин Лес or Shishkin Les (supposedly meaning Cone Forest) is a 5-piece Russian weapon of surveillance and forest leveling. Универс or Univers (which I guess doesn't need to be translated) is a slob of droney funeral doom that's one made up of one gigantic, 32-minute-long track. They've previously released Материя or Materija (which I also guess doesn't need to be translated), and even though that had longer songs, too, none of those three surpassed the 20-minute mark.
It goes without saying that the music is slow and distorted. Though not really as slow as the slowest of drone, the glacial pace and the wall of sound do place it on the border between funeral doom and drone, feeling like both and neither, really. The droney parts feel more like hazy Nadja than disorienting Sunn O))). The funeral doom is more persistent in the first part of the song, with the usual pace and slow riffs and first the soft female vocals and then low growls. Great, but nothing too out of the ordinary.
But Shishkin Les know that a 30-minute funeral doom song would be a bore, so around the 14-minute mark, the keyboards take center stage. The colossal riff still runs in the background, but is more subdued by the encompassing noise effects. At an obvious glacial pace, they get more and more intense until a stronger riff erupts, bringing back the vocals as well, this time much more tortured and less growly. This doesn't mean that the noise stops, however; it blends much more organically with the rest of the instrumentation, creating an absolutely massive and all-encompassing sound. Though the funeral doom sound does return, the oppressive feeling is much more powerful than before the middle segment.
Univers is a great mix of sounds belonging in similar genres. Though not entirely original, the female vocals and the more keyboard-driven sound that is both ethereal and terrifyingly crushing do give it a bit of its own flavour. The best part? It's for name your price.
Comments
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Posts: 1175
Good description of this. I really like the brevity of the record. A fair few movements are packed nto 30 minutes so it doesn't become boring, though it does kind of leave me clamouring for more. I guess there's a new Nadja album on the horizon so that should satisfy me.
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Posts: 9639 Written by Mercurial on 25.06.2018 at 01:00 Honestly I prefer albums that make me wish they were longer than ones that make me wish they were shorter.
---- Do you think if the heart keeps on shrinking One day there will be no heart at all?
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 Posts: 647 |
Posts: 647
Glad you reviewed this - while I wasn't crazy about this album, it led me to their previous release, материя, which was super spacey and great. On another note, I wonder why the romanization of their name is so weird
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Posts: 5827  |
Posts: 5827 Written by Marcus on 27.06.2018 at 05:34 In Cyrilic the letter which has the 's' sound is the Russian C, therefore 'Siskin Les' would be romanizating Cискин Лес, which is wrong. Ш has the sound of 'sh' as in ship, or the same sound as the Czech '?', so that's why they write it that way.
---- "Aah! The cat turned into a cat!" - Reimu Hakurei
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Posts: 647 Written by Karlabos on 27.06.2018 at 05:42 Ah okay thanks for clarifying, I speak some Russian so I figured "?" had the same sound as "sh" (only thing that makes sense) but had no clue what language/alphabet since we avoid accents whenever possible in English. I appreciate the letter lesson!
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Posts: 9639 Written by Marcus on 27.06.2018 at 05:52 In Romanian we also have a similar letter, ș, which basically has the same sh sound. Also ț which was a ts sound as in tsar.
---- Do you think if the heart keeps on shrinking One day there will be no heart at all?
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Posts: 647 Written by RaduP on 27.06.2018 at 10:12 So ț is similar to ц? Very cool, I appreciate you and Karlabos going over all this, cheers!
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 Posts: 64504 |
Posts: 64504
Nice way to write about Dinald Tormp and Voldomar Putman. I say putman has more unknown weapons put on the table, because Rus doom (even soem elitsists here disagree) but Rus has great doom scene and Solitude Productions is example. Many underated bands they have, but country is reason why its unknown to the west. Americans has english languge what to offer and its even stronger reason to follow, easyer to dig deeper(into the grave) for underground bands.
---- I stand whit Ukraine and Israel. They have right to defend own citizens. Stormtroopers of Death - "Speak English or Die"  I better die, because I never will learn speek english, so I choose dieing
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