Drudkh - Вічний Оберт Колеса (Eternal Turn Of The Wheel) review
| Band: | Drudkh |
| Album: | Вічний Оберт Колеса (Eternal Turn Of The Wheel) |
| Style: | Atmospheric black metal, Pagan black metal |
| Release date: | February 24, 2012 |
| A review by: | Daniell |
01. Eternal Circle
02. Breath Of Cold Black Soil
03. When Gods Leave Their Emerald Halls
04. Farewell To Autumn's Sorrowful Birds
05. Night Woven Of Snow, Winds And Grey-Haired Star
A shameless, abortive attempt at re-creating the old sound and atmosphere. That's a TL; DR version for you if you aren't too big on reading. If you are, find out why below.
Drudkh is my second favourite black metal band, with only Enslaved in front. I really love them and regard their back catalogue as one of the strongest in black metal. But when I found out about Eternal Turn of the Wheel back in December, something smelled fishy to me. The title of the new album screamed to me: "Hey dudes, we're back to our roots, forget the post-black experiment that Handful of Stars was." A new song that was published a few weeks afterward alleviated my fears a bit because I quite liked it. Chalk it up to my blind love for Drudkh...
Now that I've heard the whole album, I'm quite disgusted. After repeated listens, after taking long breaks and coming back for more repeated listens, I can only say that another of my favourite bands has deteriorated to such a sorry state that I'm seriously worried about their future.
So what we have here? First of all, craploads of boring as hell noodling that was supposed to sound like Forgotten Legends. What was a virtue in the past has become a vice. The songs stretch like condoms, proving the old rule: size is not so important, skill and passion are. Maybe a bit of skill is still here, but passion is absent. The simplistic condom metaphor seems oddly appropriate. The outpouring of creativity and fertility that impregnated so many Drudkh albums in the past has been abruptly stopped. What's left is a dry, barren landscape of feeble helplessness. The band is desperately trying to re-kindle the spark that has dwindled away. But they fail miserably.
Even the sound of Eternal Turn of the Wheel sucks. Paper thin, irritating guitars, cardboard drums and forced, weak vocals. The bass guitar that used to interestingly float away from the guitars on the previous album is now almost non-existent. For the first time since 2004, when I first listened to Drudkh I felt like turning the music off to stop the annoying buzzing.
How the mighty have fallen. Maybe it's time for the wheel to stop turning?
Rating breakdown
| Performance: | 7 |
| Songwriting: | 5 |
| Originality: | 6 |
| Production: | 5 |
 | Written on 27.03.2012 by Writes overly honest and totally subjective reviews when fancy strikes him. Which is not often. Which is probably good, all things considered. |
Comments
Comments: 24
Visited by: 318 users
| 3rdWorld China was a neat Posts: 4367  |
Ah. . The condom metaphor. . . Fitting 
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| !J.O.O.E.! Account deleted |
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| Daniell _爱情_ Elite Posts: 6100  |
Just when I was about to write something positive, I realised it was time to finish the review 
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| X-Ray Rod Skandino Staff Posts: 18374  |
The band definitely didn't go all the way to their older sound at all.... You know what I'm saying?!  But yeah, this is such a shame.
---- Written by BloodTears on 19.08.2011 at 18:29 Written by Milena on 20.06.2012 at 10:49
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| Marcel Hubregtse Grumpy Old Fuck Elite Posts: 40071  |
At least it's a huge huge step up from the previous one. And also a bit up from Microcosmos.
---- Member of the true crusade against European Flower Metal Yesterday is dead and gone, tomorrow is out of sight Dawn Crosby (r.i.p.) 05.04.1963 - 15.12.1996 
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| Daniell _爱情_ Elite Posts: 6100 |
Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 27.03.2012 at 16:34 Handful of Stars was very much different, but definitely better than this one.
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| Marcel Hubregtse Grumpy Old Fuck Elite Posts: 40071 |
Written by Daniell on 27.03.2012 at 16:38 I beg to differ on the last part of your comment. Handful Of Stars was an extremely weak attempt at some sort of shoegazish drivel and failed utterly at that.
---- Member of the true crusade against European Flower Metal Yesterday is dead and gone, tomorrow is out of sight Dawn Crosby (r.i.p.) 05.04.1963 - 15.12.1996
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| !J.O.O.E.! Account deleted |
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| Marcel Hubregtse Grumpy Old Fuck Elite Posts: 40071 |
Written by [user id=4365] on 27.03.2012 at 16:51 Yes, I did, indeed. Currently I totally can't stand it any more. It got worse with each subesequent listen.
---- Member of the true crusade against European Flower Metal Yesterday is dead and gone, tomorrow is out of sight Dawn Crosby (r.i.p.) 05.04.1963 - 15.12.1996
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| BitterCOld The Ancient One Admin Posts: 15287  |
I got into them late - with "Blood In Our Wells" being their most recent full-length release at the time. not a single album they have put out since that time has mesmerized/interested/intrigued me as much as what they already had out. i'm sure the rapidfire releases don't really help.
---- get the fuck off my lawn. Beer Bug Virus Spotify Playlist crafted by Nikarg and I. Feel free to tune in and add some pertinent metal tunes!
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| -DC-002- Mastercommander Posts: 1703  |
Drudkh get a wag of my finger for their shamelessness.
---- Coldgrits
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| Marcus Doit Like Bernie Posts: 642  |
Not a great album but better than A Handful of Stars, that album got old fast. For whatever reason I keep coming back to listen to this album; it's far from riveting or anything but there's something about it which I can't quite put my finger on. Anyways, I respectfully disagree with your review.
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| Slayer666 Posts: 2466  |
Guess I'll be one of the few to disagree. I like this very much and it's easily my 4th favorite Drudkh release.
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| spirit_inblack harshhead Posts: 715  |
C'mon now, it's good background music... I agree with whoever said (Lurker?) that they lack the emphatic riffs they used to have. This is actually a very important part of Drudkh's music, and has been lacking since Estrangement (although, to some degree, this existed on Microcosmos as well).
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| Merchant of Doom Posts: 702  |
Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 27.03.2012 at 16:41 Although I still haven't listened to this one yet, I agree with you on HoS... whilst everybody on planet metal was raving about it, I found it boring as f***.
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| !J.O.O.E.! Account deleted |
!J.O.O.E.!
Account deleted Written by Merchant of Doom on 28.03.2012 at 18:58  I remember it being extremely divisive actually, certainly not universally praised.
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| Merchant of Doom Posts: 702 |
Written by [user id=4365] on 28.03.2012 at 19:04 I didn't mean here in particular, but on other sites too, if that's what you are referring to... I didn't read a single negative review at the time. Maybe I didn't look hard enough... 
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| Marcel Hubregtse Grumpy Old Fuck Elite Posts: 40071 |
Written by [user id=4365] on 28.03.2012 at 19:04 I remember more positive reviews about it than negative ones. And it only being slightly divisive amongst metal fans.
---- Member of the true crusade against European Flower Metal Yesterday is dead and gone, tomorrow is out of sight Dawn Crosby (r.i.p.) 05.04.1963 - 15.12.1996
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| !J.O.O.E.! Account deleted |
!J.O.O.E.!
Account deleted Written by Merchant of Doom on 28.03.2012 at 19:11 From the first few of pages on Google: Sputnik Metal Review Metal Observer Metal Temple Xplosive Plenty of them are good but not great reviews too 3/5 etc. Only saw a couple over 8/10. Not to mention the reviews on Metal Archives which sum up the general feel toward this record.
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| !J.O.O.E.! Account deleted |
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| Merchant of Doom Posts: 702 |
Ok, it was such a long time ago... maybe only my friends were raving about it, then...
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| Opethian Posts: 1757  |
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| Kuroboshi Posts: 1200  |
Reading all the negative comments, I was even prepared not to give this one a spin, but I was positively surprised. I thought it's very good. Maybe not up there with Autumn Aurora, but easily Microcosmos-class.
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| Daniell _爱情_ Elite Posts: 6100 |
Written by Kuroboshi on 13.04.2012 at 16:46 Maybe that's a good way to make people like an album. Bash it before they listen, they will expect shit, and get nicely surprised...
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