Review by Sonny for Drudkh - Blood in Our Wells (2006)

When it comes to atmospheric black metal, Drudkh can justifiably be considered one of the prime movers of the genre, despite a bit of a drop-off during the early part of the 2010s, and are one of the bands, along with WitTR and Winterfylleth, who really got me excited about this type of nature- and folk history-themed black metal. For me, this is Drudkh's finest hour (well, fifty minutes actually) and one of the greatest atmo-black releases of all-time.
Unfortunately Drudkh have been dogged by accusations of far right sympathies, despite professing to being apolitical, and dedicating the album to Stepan Bandera, who was head of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (a group labelled as fascist by many historians) isn't going to discourage their accusers any. Personally I am only interested in the music, having no time for extreme politics and will approach it in the same way as with Varg Vikernes' Burzum and pay no mind to the political connotations either overt or implied.
Musically the album takes the form of an atmospheric wall of sound that towers over the listener like a great mountain range or gathering thunderheads, both expansive and airy, but also threatening and dark. The production is great and allows the music to fill every space, from the faint echoing on the drums and the rumbling basslines to the crystal-clear riffing and emotion-filled vocals, every members part is given life and allowed to shine, none to the detriment of any other. Most of the songs are around the ten-minute mark and, as is typical with most atmospheric black metal, they feature a fair deal of repetition, but that is not a criticism, the repetition feels as if the band are laying down a series of layers that build up the album's atmosphere. Occasionally there are some really nice melodies, as towards the end of Furrow of Gods that, I guess, are based on Ukrainian folk music. The album also features some excellent soloing that is unusual in atmo-black, although it doesn't jump out and take over the music but is still fundamentally a part of the whole, like in any good ecosystem. The lyrics are taken from poetry by well-respected Ukrainian writers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries such as Oleksandr Oles and doubtless extol the beauty and majesty of Ukraine's natural landscape.
As I said at the start of the review, this is Drudkh's best album, but I would go further and say that it is, debatably, the best atmospheric black metal album out there.