Gloosh - Sylvan Coven (2021)^{Release ID: 32434}

Gloosh is a solo project of Siberia's George Gabrielyan (Георгий Габриэльян) who is also the instrumentalist behind duo Frozenwoods. The project seems to be unfairly hindered by having a name that doesn't really fire the imagination of most English-speaking black metal afficianados (despite being Russian for wilderness it doesn't translate well into English) and consequently doesn't glean the attention that he may have otherwise, which is a great shame as Gloosh are a step up from a majority of Russian black metal outfits. He plays a dramatic style of atmospheric black metal that is at once extremely expressive and viscerally savage. Opener Swampsong, for example, is a real whirlwing of a track, blasting along at an impressive tempo, whilst the terrific, ragged vocals shriek about how they are the natural elements that make no concession to Man (all the lyrics are in Russian), a concept I'm certain is familiar to someone who lives in Siberia! It's not all breakneck blasting however, there are some nice tempo changes, sometimes even verging on doom metal pacing, and several more melodic, medium-paced sections that give the tracks plenty of variety and allow for some nice builds and climaxes. The track that was released as a promo, Hexenring, is the prime example of this variety, from an all-out blasting assault of an opening to a funeral doom-like central section it climaxes with a dual female-vocal that is reminiscent of Lindy-Fay Hella's vocals for Wardruna.

Thankfully, despite the thematic predominance of nature and the natural world, Gloosh never resorts to hokey folk metal cheesiness, but keeps within the realms of black metal, in the manner of more talented black metal naturalists, such as Wolves in the Throne Room. I quite enjoyed Gloosh's debut Timewheel, but I consider this a considerable step up in quality, both with respect to the songwriting and dynamism of the performance and also the production values - the album sounds absolutely fantastic. Although it isn't by any means a perfect release, it certainly shows enough potential that allows optimism that he may one day produce a Two Hunters of his own.