The new year entered very promising and brought together a new album by Drudkh. The Ukrainian legends have auspiciously released their ninth full-length album and the third under Season Of Mist. Normally, I was expecting another album like “Handful Of Stars” with post/black metal compositions or an album like “Microcosmos” with many ambient elements in their music, but “Eternal Turn Of The Wheel” refuted me pleasantly. It’s like the first four albums, where they’re playing austere black metal music, but also keeps a little atmosphere from “Microcosmos”. Who cares anyway? Every Drudkh album has its own beauty.

First of all, “Eternal Turn Of The Wheel” is an honest album. There’s nothing experimental here, it’s just Drudkh as we liked them in “The Swan Road” or “Blood In Our Wells”. Like any other predecessor album, this one too, is a hymn to Nature. The second song is dedicated to spring, the third to summer, the fourth to autumn and the fifth to winter. The album starts as usual with an instrumental intro, an “Eternal Circle” of every season. As I said above, “Eternal Turn Of The Wheel” is closer to the first album with the atmosphere of “Microcosmos” combined in music compositions. “Breath Of Cold Black Soil” starts with very furious riffs and blastbeats, with keyboards as background music. It’s smartly separated by keyboards and tempo changes for not being boring. Next song on the list is “When Gods Leave Their Emerald Halls”, a song which was published a bit earlier on the internet. A feeling of satisfaction remained after the listening, because it’s a very beautiful track. The atmosphere is very bombastic and coexists perfectly with the rough guitar compositions in the chorus. But the epic spot here, is in the end with the majestic arpegio and the following raw guitar riff.

So far, there are two great songs that opened the album and I hoped also, for the other half of the “”Eternal Turn Of The Wheel” to be the same. Well, “Farewell To Autumn’s Sorrowful Birds” has similar music structure and as the title says, is full of depressive attitude. The riffs somehow reveal a predisposition for melodies, that are fitting with the cold atmosphere and the drums fit perfectly with the guitar. Staying in the sorrowful seasons, “Night Woven Of Snow, Winds And Grey-haired Stars” is a depressive song, too. Keyboard music is more dominant here and magically orchestrated. But the riffs and the drumming haven’t shown something special in my opinion. They’re basically two riffs and a simple drumming.

In conclusion, “Eternal Turn Of The Wheel” is a very capable album with the usual Drudkh compositions. It is true that they’re presenting a music combined with their first works and “Microcosmos” elements. The band has nothing to prove and they are continuing to play the same majestic music. Their efforts were vindicated by the contract with Season Of Mist and the new album can be a great commercial success for the company, considering some music failures in the summer. Especially, if the record company will release an awesome box set, like that one from “Handful Of Stars”. A worth buying album, that I will not leave unnoticed.

Track List Line Up
01. Eternal Circle
02. Breath Of Cold Black Soil
03. When Gods Leave Their Emerald Halls
04. Farewell To Autumn’s Sorrowful Birds
05. Night Woven Of Snow, Winds And Grey-haired Stars
Thurios – Vocals, Keyboards
Roman Saenko – Guitar, Bass
Krechet – Bass, Keyboards
Vlad – Drums, Keyboards