Band:	Hwwauoch
Album:	Hwwauoch
Style:	Black metal
Release date:	November 16, 2018
Guest review by:	Neachy

01. Three Phantoms, One Heart
02. Ad Extirpanda
03. Extinction & Enlightenment
04. Emanations Of Forgotten Futures
05. Thou Shalt Feed The Ergosphere

You kids with your Migglas and Shmashes. The kvlt grows tiresome. What wave of black metal are we in now? The average, hackneyed stuff floats to the surface and gems sit relatively undiscovered and unappreciated all too often. That's what loud mouthed elitists are for.

Most black metal fans like to hype up scenes and regions. Polish, Icelandic, etc. Then every so often there sprouts a more tightly knit collective such as Les Légions Noires or The Black Twilight Circle. Somewhere in Russia, a fairly new circle has formed known as The Prava Kollectiv. This group is in the midst of their productive years as these things tend to go quiet and drift back into the silence from which they sprang almost as suddenly as they emerged. HWWAUOCH is so far the magnum opus of this group.

Clocking in at just under 34 minutes, this is simultaneously way too short and just short enough to keep the listener from descending into inescapable madness. As is the case with much top notch black metal, sound production and mixing takes this from being some maniac(s) assaulting their instruments and ruining their voice to a majestically insane and captivating sonic experience. The performances are precisely what one should hope for from the most extreme of extreme black metal. Incomprehensible shrieked vocals delivered with the passion of one who must think he is calling forth the apocalypse, spastic, savant-like drumming, ominous and dissonant guitar riffs and wobbly thumping bass lines.

The production is where the magic happens. This is compressed and spacious all at once. There is an omnipresent layer of compressed and distorted guitar, mostly tremolo picked that sits under the rest of the sound. Another layer of much more discernible guitar sounds echoes cavernously on top, moving at whatever pace the maniacal maestro sets forth. Drumming and bass generally ride evenly with "lead" guitar layer but ebb and flow in their prominence as there are times when the bass and drums sink into the mix and others where they almost take the lead. Vocals are somewhat buried but are delivered with such oomph that they rise above the cacophony quite frequently.

Arizmenda and Skáphe spring to mind as being moderately similar but this one ups the ante in intensity. And to top it off, it's pay what you want on bandcamp.