Rating: 8.2

Country: Ukraine

Release Date: 2006

Record Label: Propaganda Records

Track list:
1.Prologue
2.Jet Black Metal Art
3.As A Gleam of the Morning Star
4.Away!
5.To Realize and Overcome
6.Under Morning Star as a Bloody Dew…
7.Catharsis/Epilog

Lutomysl - Catharsis

Lutomysl - Guitars, Bass, Vocals
Amorth - Drums

Y'know, by now I should be getting sick of bands who blatantly worship Darkthrone's pinnacle of absolute minimalism 'Transilvanian Hunger'. Yet, somehow albums like this one continue to pique my interest. I guess it's the heady combination of ambient minimalism and metallic ferocity – this stuff is extremely melodic, sometimes even beautiful in it's composition, yet seethes with raw emotion and hatred in the delivery.

One big difference in this, Lutomysl's fifth full length offering and the third released on cassette by the small Ukrainian label Propaganda, is the production. Rather than burying everything in a haze of fuzz and lo-fi distortion, the guitar sound here is absolutely pristine and the drums pack quite a punch, yet everything somehow retains a raw, primal ambience. The vocals, on the other hand, are shrouded in crackling hiss and are also semi-shouted, which reminds me of the style adopted by Dodheimsgard on the oft-overlooked classic 'Kronet til konge' album.

Okay, comparing this to all these Norwegian bands isn't really fair. This band is distinctly Ukrainian in both style and atmosphere, with all lyrics except the first song delivered in their native language, and a distinctly Slavic folk feel in the melodies, rather than the obvious Viking aura conjured by their Norse counterparts.

While this release is available both on CD and cassette (I was provided with a CDr along with a cassette insert, so I made my own tape copy), to my ears this actually suits the tape format better, the slightly warmer sound lending an extra depth to the production which is somewhat lacking on CD. So, I recommend getting the tape version if you can, since it's really the optimal format for experiencing Lutomysl 's dark art.

May 19th, 2006