Drudkh
How did a Ukrainian black metal band whose members have intermittently flirted with Nationalist Socialist and right wing views come to be considered ‘hipster metal?’ Indeed, Drudkh’s latest offering, Microcosmos, couches its harsh heaviness in beautiful, melancholic melodies and introspective acoustic segments, making it accessible even to those who don’t know anything about extreme metal.
Other bands, such as New York’s Krallice, Olympia’s Wolves in the Throne Room, and France’s Alcest have also made similar efforts to extract the genre from its clownish stereotype of corpse paint, puerile shrieking, and satanism, and have had similar epithets thrown at them by self-appointed guardians of metal orthodoxy.
In any case, Drudkh’s signing with relatively mainstream metal label Season of Mist and their current disavowal of any political views indicates that they have no interest in remaining entrenched in the underground, despite their ‘no photos, no interviews, no website, no gigs’ policy and their professed ‘estrangement from modern values’.
Whether or not this makes them sell-outs or un-kvlt is totally in the eye of the long-haired beholder, but if you listen to Microcosmos on its own terms, perhaps under a starlit sky or by a raging fire, you may find that it is one of the most evocative and devastating albums of the year.
Tagged: Drudkh, Ukrainian black metal
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