Rating: 8.8

Country: Russia

Release Date: 2007

Record Label: BadMoonMan Music

Track list:
1. Alku
2. Aamu Ja Kaste
3. Lumikuuro
4. Savu
5. Koivun Elama
6. Syleily Sumu
7. Villiruusu
8. Syleily Sumu

Total playing time: 42:57

Band Website: Kauan

Kauan - Lumikuuro

Anton Belov ¨C Guitars, Vocals, Keys, Programming
Artur Andriasyan - Keyboards, Back Vocals
Lyubov Mushnikova - Violin

For a Russian band, Kauan seem rather transfixed on Finland. Even past the band's runic imagery and Finnish lyrics, I'm surprised the sounds contained on Lumikuuro didn't come from just west of Russia. Difficult to categorize, these Finnophiles channel Agalloch, the symphonic melancholy of Empyrium, the blackened genre-bending gloom of Wyrd, a light hint of the key-laden doom of Shape of Despair, Scandinavian folk, with even some subtle blues and jazz elements surfacing in their acoustic songs.

Lumikuuro's notes are strung together with a sense of gentle minimalism that favors tonal sensitivity to the bombast that this kind of music, with such eclectic instrumentation to boot, often entails. The synth ranges from an organic blur to crystalline and music box-esque, but aside from the Tales From the Thousand Lakes-era Amorphisesque kitsch jamming at the end of the song "Koivun Elama", always serene and subdued. The rhythm section is, for the most part, unassumingly mid-paced. Vocally, Lumikuuro jumps from relaxed rasps to hushed crooning that brings to mind Moonsorrow's less metal moments, while mellow, almost loungey breaks dominate much of the beginning of the album. Despite all this, Kauan manage to take what could easily be a sluggish, meandering endeavor and impart upon it enough diversity and dimension to make it captivating.

There are a few dark neofolk flourishes in vein of Tenhi in the form of the occasional sproingy jaw-harp bit and shrieking flute careening about the riffs, but Lumikuuro works best when it shrugs off the pretense of metal and allows these archaic instruments to assume a central role in the music. The sweeping violin passage at the beginning of the song "Syleily Sumu", for example, facilitates an atmosphere not unlike that of a high-budget wuxia film. But at the same time, Kauan's sonic canvas is distinctly modern. At the risk of dating a review for an album with appeal that will outlive this reference, the bubbly keyboard line in the title track almost reminded me of "Chocolate Rain," that insanely catchy pop song with the internet cult following. Except it doesn't make you want to suicide-bomb anything.

Only once in a blue moon do Kauan assert themselves as a metal band with the occasional commanding power chords, tremolo riffs and flurry of double-kick drums, but even the most metallic moments merely provide a gritty backdrop to sweeping synth coloration. The final two songs are completely devoid of electric guitar, with saxophones, folky violin & cello scratching, and the omnipresent piano taking the stage, but the album's so deliberately paced, you probably won't even notice the change if you're not paying strict attention -- an arduous task, as music this calming tends to reflect scrutiny.

Highly recommended.

January 30th, 2008