DRUDKH – Handful of Stars CD review

DRUDKH – Handful of Stars CD
Season of Mist Records

I had thought last year’s Microcosmos was going to be Roman Saenko’s last release under the band name DRUDKH and he was going to turn his newer side project, BLOOD OF KINGU, into a full time thing. Well so much for believing online chat and forum rumors. I already think BLOOD OF KINGU’s release, Sun in the House of the Scorpion, is damm good and this one is interesting to say the least. Since DRUDKH doesn’t tour nor does promo work at all they have plenty of time to spend writing and recording. This gives them a great advantage over their contemporaries by being on the constant creative flow. It also makes them the leaders of the real post black metal genre and others as followers. When I say “real post black metal”, I referring to bands or individuals who’ve come from the black metal scene and not a bunch of indie rock losers riding coattails.

Handful of Stars is essentially four impressive numbers which are book ended by two short somber instrumentals. This is nothing new except that in the past they were actually part of longer songs and DRUDKH would set things more in Folk but here it’s Classical. The opening cut “Cold Landscapes” is simply a piano played opening which sets the melancholy tone. The closer “Listening to the Silence” uses the same effect except the main instrument is acoustic guitar. The meat of this release starts on the second track “Downfall of the Epoch”. The signature of this song is the basic non black metal riff which lies more in the post punk realm of bands like SONIC YOUTH, HUSKER DU or THE BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE. It’s jangly as well as melodic and the vibe is something which other bands like Neige’s ALCEST and AMESOEURS as well as Ireland’s ALTAR OF PLAGUES have been experimenting with. To all of you out there clutching copies of Forgotten Legends to your breasts it’s true, Roman Saenko has traded BURZUM in for Thurston Moore and Bob Mould.

Is it a bad thing? Well yeah if you’re a hipster because you’ve got two strikes against ya for jumping on the DRUDKH bandwagon to start with and this curve ball will strike you out. For black metal truthers well they never liked this band or post BM to start with so they’ll get their spiked leather belts twisted in a knot anyways. Finally the trendy Hot Topic crowd won’t care at all because they download everything for free anyhow. As for the rest of us there’s alot here to consume. On “Towards the Light” the band takes that savage yet sad beauty and simply subtracts the thundering ambiance. Thurios’ vocals are still painful cries from the wilderness. That’s something DRUDKH will not take away. There’s some post BM which really sounds like JOY DIVISION meets DARKTHRONE at a gay bar, thankfully this isn’t like that. Amidst the jangly rhythms on “Towards the Light” Saenko tosses in a solo worthy of progressive tastes.

“Twilight Aureole” and “The Day Will Come” are the two cuts where the band really dives into shoegazer territory the most. They’re also my least favorites. “Twilight Aureole meanders along for five minutes and then the anger of past releases enters into the picture. “The Day Will Come” is similar although there’s some excitement near the end with an almost psych damaged solo. The song cuts off sharply leading into the earlier mentioned acoustic guitar outro. Yes Handful of Stars is interesting in that they’ve broken themselves down to a cleaner sound, kicked aside the folk elements and left the transcending soundscapes in the past. When I first listened to this the different experimental style had me excited since I’m a fan of early SONIC YOUTH. I figured why not since Thurston Moore has admitted to liking black metal. The first half of this is decent but the second half sounds as if the band lost passion and just went through the shoegazer motions. Their early stuff will stand the test of time. Handful of Stars will be a career curio.

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