Review by Sonny for Ashtar - Kaikuja (2020)

Ashtar are a husband and wife duo, Marko and Nadine Lehtinen from Basel in Switzerland (although Marko is Finnish), who play an unholy hybrid of doom/black/sludge metal. Five years on from their debut, Ilmasaari, they have finally released this, their second album after moving from local label Czar of Bullets to Eisenwald. Kaikuja is apparently Finnish for "Echoes" which is apt as it's deep, resonant riffing sounds as if echoing from some vast underground chamber.

The album kicks straight in with some righteous, blasting, black metal as opener Aeolus grabs the listener by the throat, it's lyrics of mountain-top winds being classic BM fare, but the track soon morphs into a more sludgy affair as the tempo slows.

Second track, Between Furious Clouds, at 13 minutes is an unrelenting, pounding slab of bass-heavy, monolithic doom telling a tale of a mythical cosmic giant and is where Nadine's violin makes it's first appearance on the album, if only briefly.

The remaining three tracks, Bloodstones, The Closing and (She is) Awakening continue the blackened doom assault, the dense, heaving riffs contrasting with Nadine's caustic blackened shrieks to conjure an ominous and smouldering atmosphere. (She is) Awakening ends with the dissonant cacophony of tortured violin that brings the album to a suitable close.

I was a big fan of debut Ilmasaari and I still feel that that is the better album, albeit marginally, due to it's greater emphasis on the sludge and doom elements with the production sounding better too, but make no mistake, this is a good album if you like the more extreme end of the doom metal world.