Band:	Dola
Album:	Czasy
Style:	Black metal, Doom metal
Release date:	July 2021

01. Wszystko Odrośnie
02. Kije
03. -
04. Przy Ziemi
05. бога Нет
06. Nowa Jesień

If you like your metal so formless that it's not even metal anymore, you're in luck!

You might remember Dola from our previous review or from the Extreme Doom category in last year's Metal Storm Awards, even if their self-titled scored last place. There was something incredibly unique about how genres like blackened doom and post-metal got washed away in a hazy psychedelic ambiance that was equally unnerving and exciting. But you could clearly listen to Dola and say confidently that it was a metal album, whether you felt it was more of a doom one or a post-metal one. Listening to Czasy, I feel like Dola was more post, going by what the two have in common, but what the two don't have in common is how much Czasy pushed away the metal.

"Formless" might not be the perfect word to use in this context, because Czasy lacks the metal even in moments that clearly have a lot of form. But that psychedelic feeling lingers on a lot throughout and it genuinely feels like an unnerving haze a lot of the time. It's less grounded in something I can confidently perceive, to the point where it grounds itself in the moments when it switches to a more straight-forward metal approach. There are big walls of guitars to be heard here, and though there definitely are some touches of doom and black sprinkled around, they're more the exception than the rule. The vocals are barely present, but when the shrieks hit, they're still as blood-curdling as they were on Dola.

Instead, Czasy feels distinctly post-metal at its heaviest. But it's heaviest is far in between things that range from elongated acoustic guitar passages, ambient synths, bleak post-rock, jazzy drumming, and drones. Sometimes it feels hollow, but not necessarily in a bad way. I guess hollow in a way that makes me feel like this is harder to really grasp even if it isn't intricate. Even if the tone of the album rarely moves away from its bleak haze, the approach does have its shifts. And it seems like the most important things for Czasy is maintaining said bleak atmosphere, and taking its sweet time doing so. This is a slow album in more ways than one.

This would make for a mean soundtrack album if it was instrumental, but as it stands, it does make me wish it had a bit more focus on something other than atmosphere. As far as atmosphere goes, though? It's impeccable. From the production to the performances, Czasy is as daunting as it gets.