Band:	Arkona
Album:	Khram
Style:	Progressive black metal, Pagan folk metal
Release date:	January 19, 2018
A review by:	RaduP

01. Mantra (Intro)
02. Shtorm
03. Tseluya Zhizn'
04. Rebionok Bez Imeni
05. Khram
06. V Pogonie Za Beloj Ten'yu
07. V Ladonyah Bogov
08. Volchitsa
09. Mantra (Outro)

Arkona were already pretty much set; with the level of popularity they achieved, they could've just kept making the same folk metal they always did. Instead, they chose to build upon everything they had created so far and craft their most ambitious album to date. Did it pay off?

This is the furthest from folk metal that Arkona have ever been. Not to say that there are absolutely no folk elements here, otherwise Arkona wouldn't have a member specifically for those folk instruments, but they are certainly not at the forefront here. Instead, we get some really elaborate black metal. We don't get any """jolly""" circle-dancing folk like on other albums; even though Arkona never had Korpiklaani levels of jolly folk, they still had cuts like "Stenka Na Stenku" or "Kupala I Kostroma", but here on Khram the closest we get to that sound is "Shtorm", mostly because it's the shortest track that's not an intro or an outro.

Khram as a whole is rather reminiscent of songs like "Yav" or "Na Moyey Zemle", which is obvious with just one look at the track lengths. Right after the aforementioned "Shtorm" comes the longest track, clocking in at 17 minutes, and right after it comes the second longest at 12 minutes, with the rest of the tracks of varying lengths between 7 and 9 minutes, bringing the album's run time to around 75 minutes. And while I've previously criticised Harakiri For The Sky's latest for having such a long run time, I can't help but feel that Arkona managed to fill the time much better, in such a way that no minute feels rehashed or redundant.

And the songwriting on this thing is absolutely superb. Often bordering on progressive, Khram showcases both the technical abilities of the members and their abilities to write engaging passages that make the album's run time not seem like a chore. Beautifully diverse, from the black metal blast attack of "Shtorm" to the piano section of" V Ladonyah Bogov" to the electronic (yes, you read that right) section of "V Pogonie Za Beloj Ten'yu". The whole album is encased between an intro and an outro, both called "Mantra", whose chanting gives the album a mystical aura as well.

It's rather amazing to see a band push to evolve its sound and be so ambitious in a relatively late period in their career, with Khram being their 8th studio album, although with Arkona, the tendency was always there. Thus, we have Khram, likely Arkona's best album so far, amazingly written, proficiently performed, where the lyrics have literally been written in Masha's blood, and the most ambitious folk metal album I've heard since Finsterforst's #‎YØLØ, though they are polar opposites in almost every way.