Review by Rexorcist for Drudkh - Shadow Play (2025)

Now we all know that Drudkh had a leading say in the development of nature-themed black metal.  They were basically THE band for the job.  They had a bit of a rocky road after their 2009 album Microcosmos, as the people say, but there seemed to be, ahem, light in the forest, during recent years.  So while I came into 2025's Shadow Play with some good expectations, I remained aware that those expectations wouldn't be met.  So while the album's getting great reviews, I have to say that they've once again become a passable and generic black metal band.  This whole album is all about relying on, and drawing out, half of the basics they had already mastered in the 2000's from Forgotten Legends to Blood in Our Wells.  The album's going for finely-tuned production above everything else, so black metal riffs and melodies come off as unoriginal.  As well, the production doesn't always balance out the ambient backgrounds and the riffs in the foreground, occasionally coming off as muddily-handled despite the ambiance.  I mean, Drudkh influenced so many bands that have done this album so many times that it's not a joke.  Did you know, if you just check the RYM charts and filter it by year and with only black metal, you'll get 25 pages of 40 black metal albums?  And 25 is the maximum they show in custom charts.  That means every year, we get over 1000 black metal albums.  These days, thanks to other nature-themed atmo-black bands like Panopticon and Ashenspire, I can guarantee you a good portion of those albums is nature-themed.  That means Drudkh has gone from influencing a classic form of metal to producing the same tripe that their own imitators make every year, just with better studio production that sometimes gets in the way.  What an overrated disappointment.  Production will keep it tolerable throughout, but otherwise this is kinda bogus.

52