While I most commonly tend to associate
Ukrainian black metal with a rough sound and a folky edge, that is
certainly not everything the country has to offer. One of the many
examples is the consistent one-man Moloch that has been churning out
new material for a few years, but in that time a really fucking lot
of releases, and I mean really. Last year when the subject of this
review, Illusionen eines verlorenen Lebens, came out, there were eight
releases in addition to this. This always raises some suspicion in me
and especially considering the tag 'DSBM' often attached to the
project: a subgenre that is easy to play correlates quite often with a huge discography lacking actual quality.
In the case of Moloch and the album in
hand, I don't think the assumption above is entirely incorrect here.
What instantly catches my attention is the drum machine, a common
symptom of bedroom projects, but this time I'm not going to devote
all the space for nagging about it. Onto the content, an eight minute
wintery ambient introduction ”Illusion des Winters” sets the
atmosphere fittingly, which is then followed by two metal tracks. The
drums whack rather slow beats on both, under the ringing distortion
of the guitars that play rather incoherent rhythms but, admittedly,
there is something charming in this hard-to-decipher obscurity of the
riffs. The melancholic chords are there standing fixed, but plucked
in a seemingly random pattern, and it creates a nice aura of
desperation. Synths are in quite prominent role as well, somewhat
softer sounding than the black metal, so I wouldn't have minded if
they were a bit crispier like the record is otherwise. The vocals
remind me a lot of Kim's (Hypothermia) despondent screams, a breeze
of nostalgia from a few years back when I listened to a lot of the
aforementioned band.
Although I've now depicted only three
of the album's tracks, the same descriptions apply to the rest of the
album pretty sufficiently: mid-paced, comfortless black metal that
concludes in two ambient pieces, the short and distant self-titled
”Illusionen eines verlorenen Lebens”, and the Burzum esque,
22-minute ”Abgrund Meines Wesens”. In a way I'm happy that the
purely ambient material takes a lot of the album's running time
because I think that's when Moloch is at its best: creating authentic
atmospheres of desolation in absence of metal instrumentation.
Whenever I return to listen to Illusionen eines verlorenen Lebens,
it's mostly because of the successful ambient rather than the 'DSBM'
you see a lot of others doing already – and often even better. A
fine record though nothing mindblowing, and a welcome trip to some
very depressed landscapes amidst all the other black metal I've been
listening to lately.
3 / 5
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