The end of February this year
stands for some important releases in my books: not only it is the
release date of Venus Star's second LP Setyphorus, but also of Rahu's
The Quest for the Vajra of Shadows. Rahu is another project of
prolific Atvar's who I tend to regard quite a damn successful crafter
of the black arts, and there's no way of denying the brilliance of
the demos Caput Draconis and Ride of the Eight Black Steeds released
five and four years ago, respectively. Due to the demos' personal importance on yours truly,
expectations were really high as soon as it was announced that a new
album was coming out. After finally hearing the whole thing I can
happily say that the full-length is as far as possible from being a
disappointment.
Rahu's music still revolves around
rough black metal with the addition of some clever lead melodies more
commonly heard in Circle of Ouroborus' recent material. The sound is
fierce and it buzzes like a demo tape but there's just about enough
clarity so that every instrument is discernible and the tight as hell
drumming is sufficiently airy. Airy is indeed a fitting word to
describe the whole album in general because the ethereal,
trance-inducing atmosphere is probably from another plane of
existence: this effect is achieved by the magnificent riffs and
melodies that are fired one after another from the very first seconds
to the last. The songs themselves don't really have more than three
to five riffs so there's a lot of repetition in the songs that tend
to run for around eight minutes, but it only creates a
trance-inducing feeling – and chord progressions of this high
quality tackle any signs of boredom, anyway. The interplay between the main
riffs and the lively lead melodies works like magic throughout the
record so that I'm really having a hard time choosing some particular
moments to mention here. I guess I can conclude the general overview
of the music by saying that what you can expect is some really
ethereal, enthralling and evocative underground black metal.
Someone may wonder about the lyrical
content of Rahu as the band is thematically based on Hindu mythology,
but anyone familiar with some main theosophic principles will
realize the profound, occult side of it. For example, ”Ordeal of X”
begins the journey 'alone in search of Vajra', 'to reach the sum of
All and bathe in light of creation', which refers to the individual
path of finding inner God, Vajra symbolically meaning spiritual power
here, and the follow-up ”Samudra Mantha” describes the events of
the churning of the Ocean of Milk. Studying the lyrics has turned out
very rewarding, so my biggest recommendations to exploring The Quest
for the Vajra of Shadows further than just the audio. Also, check out
the artwork which seems to be tauntamount to the brilliance of the
newest Venus Star.
When rememberable and goosebumps
inducing compositions, competent musicianship (including the well
delivered spewings of Kobalt), thoughtful lyrics and sweet artwork
all collide in the form of a neat 12” LP package, I don't, in all
honesty, find any faults here. It is against my usual principles to
give full points to a fresh album as it can't be known yet how it
will stand the test of time, but I'm going to divert from that route
this time and state that The Quest for the Vajra of Shadows is pretty
much a perfect black metal record and worth the praising score.
5 / 5
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