Style: Intense atmospheric black metal
Primary Emotions/Themes: The fulfilment of potential
Thoughts: In many ways Microcosmos is the fulfilment of a lot of potential that the band tried to tap into with their third album, The Swan Road. That album attempted to reach for a different sound and didn't quite get there... Microcosmos succeeds on all fronts where The Swan Road failed.
The key factor here is the drumming. Microcosmos has a different drummer than The Swan Road. So when the band incorporates blast beats again we have another chance to see how they sound in the Drudkh sound without the limitations of the previous drummer.
There is an urgency to Microcosmos that has been absent in all other releases from the band. A sense of great importance, that something important needs to be accomplished and accomplished in short order. The very first notes of Distant Cry of Cranes lets the listener know that this is something different. The blasting is tight, the riffs match the drums intensity with a rich fervor, and the wailing vocals match the music immaculately.
That's not to say that the entire album is full of blast beats, or has a great sense of urgency; it doesn't. It's one page in the many that make up Microcosmos. The tried and true elements of the band are still present: beautiful acoustic work, the great sense of mourning for those lost, the beautiful atmosphere that permeates every note. This is very much a Drudkh album.
Outside of the intro and outro there are only four songs on this album, each one spanning well over eight minutes in length. These songs each feel like a chapter in a book, a book that recounts stories untold from years past.
In a lot of ways Microcosmos is the fulfilment of a lot of the potential that the band explored on earlier albums. It feels like the correct implementation of blast beats into the bands sound, it also incorporates much of the sorrow that was found on Songs of Grief and Solitude into their metal aspect. By properly fleshing out these previously explored sounds the band has created something just a bit different. A spark of life in their sound when it was just starting to go stale.
Written August 9th 2024
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