Band:	Sivyj Yar
Album:	Burial Shrouds
Style:	Atmospheric black metal, Pagan black metal
Release date:	September 23, 2015
A review by:	Windrider

01. Famine
02. Burial Shrouds
03. The Earth Breathes Sorrow
04. Like A Sparkle We Will Vanish Into The Darkness
05. In Gray Izbas Ancient Rus' Endures
06. The Snow Shall Fall A Long While

Last year, Sivyj Yar quite surprised us with their album From The Dead Villages' Darkness, which is still my favorite black metal album of 2014. The atmosphere of the riffs and spoken parts with everyday situation sounds still haunt me to this day. You can guess my excitement when I heard that a successor was to be released quite exactly one year after this. Burial Shrouds was a must-have for me and I can firmly say that there is no disappointment.

Concerning a description of the style and all the things that make the music so good, I give reference to that former review of mine and focus on what has changed. And please excuse that this is gonna be short, for there aren't many changes. The same number of songs, the same approach to the music, riffing and even implementation of audio-visible situations can be found again. The biggest difference might indeed be the sound and production of the album, for now there is a fatter and cleaner tone overall. This is best heard in the drum sound, like the bass drum that is loud and full, yet still "only" a bass drum without taking anything away from other frequencies it isn't made for. The snare gives this good feeling like when you want to hit it yourself with all your strength and it responds with just the perfect tone. What is still the same on Burial Shrouds are the eerie riffs and straight-forward rhythms, sometimes even catchy like on the last track, "The Snow Shall Fall A Long While". Vocals again are quality high-pitched with some reverb like recorded from a distant point.

Sivyj Yar stands for the special moments and black metal that can even draw a smile on your face when listening to the beautiful melodies put in a more than fitting sound gown. "In Gray Izbas Ancient Rus' Endures" is what I mean with that. To this point I think there is again no real contest about the black metal album of the year, although I must admit that the other genres appear stronger overall in 2015, e.g. black metal has been falling somewhat short recently. Of course this does not lessen the effort of Sivyj Yar but makes them stand out as a huge recommendation for bored satanic graveyard walkers, again.