Band:	Druun
Album:	Veļu Laiks
Style:	Death doom metal, Folk doom metal
Release date:	December 2019

01. Sākums
02. Lien, Pelīte, Pazemē
03. Vadātājs
04. Veļu Laiks
05. Nakts Ragana
06. Mūžības Dzīslas
07. Neizvadītie
08. Beigas
09. Under The Willow Tree [Grindmaster Dead cover]

Skyforger did this already, but there won't be new Skyforger.

Folk doom: how many bands out there can you name without a deep search? Only Silent Stream Of Godless Elegy came to my mind. And I am not talking about Oriental bands like Orphaned Land; I am talking about European heathen and pagan culture, myths, stories, and tales from the time when the gods were young.

This band's roots go back to the early '90s in Grindmaster Dead, which later changed its name to Skyforger. The band's former drummer, Imants Vovers, was forced to leave (on good terms), because of his lazy attitude. Later, he played in the sludge band Diseim, and some years later found maybe the coolest frontman in the Latvian doom scene, former Heaven Grey and current Catalepsia singer Erwin Franz.

They start where Grindmaster Dead left: slow, death-tinged doom metal riffs like Winter and Hooded Menace mixed together, hoping to be Runemagick, playing old Amorphis with a kantele player as a guest musician. My Dying Bride and Ashes You Leave had violin, which makes metal sound richer, wiser, and more complex, and other such instruments can do the same as we see here; many guest musicians play instruments such as kokle, violin, bagpipes, and flute, and all those folk instrument sounds being put into a death-doom context makes this album unique. In the end, making folk doom is not so hard if you have death-doom roots.

The band's lyrics are about Latvian folklore: the darker touch of autumn, when all spirits seek to have offerings in secret places - otherwise, you're doomed to die. Methinks you need to do a little research to understand.

The production of this album is good; it has good studio work, but at the same time has that old-school touch and vibe, which makes it even better. I can complain about the lyrics. I have always said that these should be rewritten in English; for folk and black metal, it works fine, but other genres need to be in English if a band wants to get international attention. I see this band as having big potential to jump much higher than where it is now. There was little talk about this album when it came out, and now almost no one is doing it; the local market is too small, so the international market need some offers, because this band has potential. If this album were in English, it would have been reviewed on the front page of MS in 2019. Bands should think about whether they want to swim in a local bottle or be something in the international ocean of metal. Folk doom is rare, a genre where you can achieve something original and create something new.

In the end, all goes "Under The Willow Tree."