Band:	Shishkin Les
Album:	Универс
Style:	Drone metal
Release date:	March 07, 2018
A review by:	RaduP

01. 1/1

Trump may have Sunn O))) and Wolvserpent and Om, but Putin has no reason to be afraid. Russia has drones of their own. Russia has Shishkin Les.

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.