Band:	Psychonaut 4
Album:	Beautyfall
Style:	Depressive black metal
Release date:	October 31, 2020
A review by:	RaduP

01. მარტო მებრძოლი ველზე / One Man's War
02. თბილისური ტრაგედია / Tbilisian Tragedy
03. ...და შენ როგორ ხარ? / ...And How Are You?
04. Sana-Sana-Sana - Cura-Cura-Cura
05. შენახვადამოხმარება / Tokeepandtouse
06. ის სევდა, ისევ და / And Sorrow, Again
07. მტ(ვ)ერი / Dust, The Enemy

How can there be 5+ million votes from Georgia if the country only has a population of 3.7 million people?

The South Caucasus is a pretty fascinating place. It's quite like the Balkans: old empires followed by ethnic and religious conflicts trapped between the Russians and the Turks. The recent skirmishes between the Azerbaijani and Armenian forces is only the most recent examples of turmoil in the region, one that also thankfully got System Of A Down to get back to the studio. Georgia itself was in a skirmish with Russia not too long ago. They have ongoing conflicts with two autonomous regions. Needless to say, that must be an awful place to grow up in, far removed from the security we feel in these places where wars are something that happens overseas, and the worst thing is some hypothetical World War III. For a lot of people, war and turmoil is not as hypothetical.

I can't say for certain that any of Psychonaut 4's music is in any way addressing the same geopolitical issues that I named, but I can only assume that it must be a pretty depressive place to live in. Even more so as a metal fan, considering the news we hear from there. That being the case, it's no wonder that the only Georgian band I know is a depressive black metal band. One that I saw Georgian people saying is much easier to catch live in Europe than in their home country. Regardless, their sort of success story probably doesn't lie in how "exotic" they are, though hearing music like this in non-English languages is always cool, but mostly because they took Lifelover's sound and made it their own.

And when I say "made it their own", that's a bit of a stretch, because they still owe a lot to their influences, but they've managed to have a pretty distinct sound, partly because of Graf's vocals. But Beautyfall follows the longest gap in between albums that Psychonaut 4 ever had. And that comes with highs and lows. I'll start with the lows first: Graf's vocals seem to have lost a bit of their edge, but that's only reasonable considering how much he must've strained his vocals with those inhuman screeches. Also ending your album with a very close to the original cover of a Silencer track isn't really that exciting. Also it's really hard to make depressive black metal in 2020 after waves and waves of unoriginal lofi rehashes.

But Psychonaut 4 made Beautyfall probably the most exciting DSBM release of 2020. The core of the music still lies in tortured vocals, but there's a lot more melody, some interesting instrumental palettes (think horns and strings), and a lot more contrast in between the colder and warmer tones without going into any significant "gaze" territories. Heck, some of the grooves are actually almost danceable. When was the last time a DSBM album made you feel like headbanging instead of lethargically waiting for it to end? Sure, the album doesn't really keep the quality consistent, with "Tbilisian Tragedy", "Sana-Sana-Sana, Cura-Cura-Cura" and "Dust, The Enemy" being the obvious highlights, and the flow from and to these isn't always the best, but as a whole they make Beautyfall something worth being depressed about.

I don't wanna refer to this as well as "fitting for the times", since these guys have had reasons to feel like shit and to put that into music for much longer. There aren't any signs of things getting that much better.