Band:	Kauan
Album:	Ice Fleet
Style:	Post-rock, Doom metal
Release date:	April 2021

01. Enne
02. Taistelu
03. Maanpako
04. Kutsu
05. Raivo
06. Ote
07. Hauta

How many albums you know that come with tabletop RPGs?

Kauan's history really reads like a journey. Not only due to their musical evolution, going from folk black metal to posty doom to barely any metal in their post; or due to how their music really has the epic feel of a journey; but also due to how much the band has relocated over the years. The way their sound evolved didn't see massive shifts in sound, even if their first album sounds almost nothing like Ice Fleet, but a gradual desire to keep going. Though since Pirut most of what has came to be the Kauan sound was already pretty established, there was a clear trend towards the diminishing of the doom/post-metal side of their sound in favor of a more ambiental post-rock/neofolk one. That kind of peaked with 2017's Kaiho, which Ice Fleet is closest to. As you can guess what often is the case with a band's least metal album, it was also the least well received.

Of course, that is relative. I've seen praise and I've seen cries of "boring" for pretty much any Kauan album, so it's safe to say that they're consistent in some way. But both Kaiho and Ice Fleet have been called "disappointments", which is a slight nuance away from "boring", as it implies that they were actually not boring at one point. I give some sort of credence to that point. If one likes Kuu and doesn't like Kaiho, chances are, Ice Fleet is also off the list. And I have to agree that with both albums, the first listen was much more engaging than the latter ones. Especially with Kaiho, each moment felt extremely beautiful on its own, but somehow the entire thing didn't come together to act as the sum of its parts. Eventually the beauty of it faded simply because none of it felt properly capitalized on. To some extend, I feel that the same way about Ice Fleet too. But here I am, listening to it again, and I have to say, it doesn't feel as empty.

That said, it could do with maybe repeating that "AAaaAaA" choir a bit less often, or that one piano melody. There's a lot of repetition that works in music, and you need some of it if you want your album to have a soundtrack feel. But there's a fine line where it becomes pretty irritating. Following up the amazing "Raivo" with the worst offender "Hauta", is really working against the album. But somehow by the end of it, I'm ready to give it another listen. Even with those moments that don't work, the music is highly evocative of its "lost Russian fleet discovered frozen" story. You don't even need to know the story, just one look at the cover art and you can imagine yourself being in the frozen arctic as you're listening to this. Lost in a freezing see, and freezing yourself as you drift in and out of consciousness, and even so, it is so majestic outside. For such a harsh subject, the music is really hopeful and inspiring. There are a lot more metal moments in the album compared to its predecessor, ranging from a slightly heavier guitar and drum tone to full on post-metal growls.

This is music that does a lot with very little. It's in no hurry to get anywhere, and it builds everything patiently. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But it works better than it did the last time.