Band:	Drudkh
Album:	Всі Належать Ночі (All Belong To The Night)
Style:	Atmospheric black metal, Pagan black metal
Release date:	November 2022

01. Нічний (The Nocturnal One)
02. Вітряки (Windmills)
03. Листопад (November)
04. Поки Зникнем У Млі (Till We Become The Haze)

Since their formation back in 2002, Drudkh have remained a consistent force and real household name in atmospheric black metal, creating many wonderful and memorable albums such as all time genre classics Autumn Aurora, and Blood In Our Wells. So here they are years later with their twelfth release, Всі Належать Ночі (All Belong to the Night), and the question is, has this band managed to pull off yet another mighty release, despite all the circumstances surrounding it?

Now, one can only imagine how tough this past year has been for the Ukrainian atmospheric black metal band Drudkh, following the unrest and uncertainty their nation has had to endure, but despite living through such tough circumstances, the band have shown a great resilience and ploughed through to bring you their twelfth release Всі Належать Ночі (All Belong to the Night), an album that acts as a glimmer of light and hope to the darkness that has spread across their beloved nation.

Over the years, Drudkh have shown incredibly imaginative songwriting skills, and have also shown great pride and glory to their motherland Ukraine, generally by providing us with lyrics in their mother tongue, as well as lyrical themes being set around the nation they cherish and hold so dearly. Their lyrical themes are often based on tales from Slavic folklore as well as Slavic literature, inspired by national poets, such as Taras Shevchenko, Antin Pavluk, and Yakiv Hryhorovych Savchenko. The atmospheric soundscapes they create are simply stunning works of art, they have crafted some of the most beautiful, awe inspiring, and majestic nature-oriented themes in metal, and have done so by incorporating so many folk-inspired melodies through various use of instrumentation, and Всі Належать Ночі (All Belong to the Night) follows this trend.

While this album only contains four tracks, it reaches a length of over 45 minutes, but long tracks with lengthy atmospheric build ups are certainly not an uncommon theme for this band. Most of the band's former magic well and truly remains on this album, with the usual hypnotic, rhythmic tremolo riffing, thunderous blast beat drumming, and passionate harsh vocals, which are not overdone, and effortlessly controlled and effective. Most importantly, their signature sound and tone is forever present, so by now you needn't expect much in the way of experimentation, as Drudkh had mastered their structure and style during their early days, and have since stuck by that. This may seem to lack in originality, but they make up for this in sheer passion and devotion, and it's a style many have come to know and admire.

On the whole, Всі Належать Ночі (All Belong to the Night) is a rather uplifting, melancholic album, with the theme being set around hope and inspiration for the tough times in which the band have been currently going through, and acts as a beacon of light for their nation that has had to endure such great suffering, but that doesn't mean Drudkh have detergent from their aggressiveness. The opening track sets a dark, cold, atmospheric tone which carries on through the album, with their aggression overlapping it. This album also contains some of the band's most gripping melodic moments in their career, for instance, that soft sweeping guitarwork at the opening to "Листопад (November)", but it's the final track, "Поки Зникнем У Млі (Till We Become the Haze)", that has become the main highlight for me on this impressive album, with the slow, haunting build-ups containing a highly effective rhythmic drumming pattern, which then builds up in a dramatic fashion.

Всі Належать Ночі (All Belong to the Night) is a testament to this band's strength and character through these times, and it shows this band's quality has not gone undermined, but remains as strong as ever.