Severnie Vrata - Prav CD

Russian Folk Black Metal 

Tracklist:
1. The Path Of Freedom 03:49
2. Kolovrat 02:50
3. Bylina 03:31
4. Kuznica 03:44
5. Human Forest 03:56
6. Jarovit 03:52
7. Dobycha 03:12
8. Sokol 03:29
9. Stribog 03:37
10. Poljushko Pole02:31
11. Utes 03:50
12. The Last Battle 02:36

The first album of Russian Folk Metalians SEVERNIE VRATA had been a very big and even more pleasant surprise for me, when I could put it into my player a few months back, as behind a highly interesting cover an at least as interesting CD waited for me. Despite full war paint and armoury I found mostly clean vocals and tons of melodies.

Now I have their current album "Prav'" and I can happily announce that nothing has changed! This starts with the great cover by Pasha Antonov, the very nice layout of the booklet, continues over the again quite martial band photos (which still do not appear exaggerated, but fit very well into the overall concept) to the music, which again is a tidbit for itself.

Opening "Put Svobody" convinces with mid paced Metal, very good melodies, good riffing, quite some keyboards, which, though, do not push to the fore, and again very good clean vocals by Alexander Nevsky. "Kolovrat" puts one more log into the fire, with double-bass and heavy riffing, embedded in another very melodic song, which especially in the tempos brings us some more variety than the opener, in the heavier passages the tight play of the band becomes very obvious as well.

The following "Blina" for the first time also shows us the rougher vocals from the SEVERNIE VRATA repertoire, which never turn into growls, though, but always remain understandable (if you understand Russian, that is) bring in another shading, which's crass contrast is a pure balalaika/vocal part, which brings the Folk into the Metal of this song, very good idea and very good execution as well! Just like with "Kuznida", where an accordion supports the regular instruments, here packed into a slow to mid paced track.

"Human Forest" then adds a whole cartload of logs, fast, with more rough vocals, but still the SEVERNIE VRATA typical great melodies, very good clean vocals, while "Yarovit" balances between measured verse and fast, double-bass driven passages (with very memorable riff) and "Sokol" at first surprises with a calm start, just to rise in intensity, yet always reverting to the calmer passage again, with very melodic leads, a few accordion and keyboards a good change of pace and intensity on "Prav'".

"Stribog" then breaks out of the typical style of the Russians, with progressive undertones and a bit weird melodies, has its charm, but does not really fit on this album, if you ask me. But "Polyzhko-Pole" more than makes up for that! Pure Folk Metal, putting an actually quite well known Russian Folk song into Metal, sounds so damn great, believe me! One candidate for an entry in my list of my favourite cover versions!

After "Poslednyi Boi" has set a really worthy closing point with a lot of power, double-bass, accordion and balalaika, I can only say that SEVERNIE VRATA have taken the winning formula of "Na Voynu" and further enhanced it for "Prav'", with a crystal clear and crisp production, which only adds to the quality of music and packaging. So if you call Folk Metal one of your favourites and do not know SEVERNIE VRATA, this is something you just have to change right away!