Band:	Sivyj Yar
Album:	From The Dead Villages' Darkness
Style:	Atmospheric black metal, Pagan black metal
Release date:	September 20, 2014
A review by:	Windrider

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.