Country of origin:Belarus

Location:Gomel, Gomel Region

Status:Split-up

Formed in:2014

Genre:Black Metal/Ambient

 

Last label:MDCXIII Prods.

Since this duo formed in 2014, Wisdom of Shadows have been busy in recording and releasing two albums, a couple of singles from these works, and a split with two other bands. "Sciah Vosieni" is WoS' second album and consists of five tracks of mostly instrumental depressive ambient BM.

I've been playing the album over and over since I found it on Youtube, in part because while sections of it can be very moving and emotional, at the same time there's something about the music that I find flat and which drags the best elements of WoS down. For one thing the music relies very heavily on synth keyboards, with all their flat-toned bluntness, for the orchestral parts. There is a lot of repetition throughout each track as well with the result that the music comes over as very mechanical. Each succeeding track simply takes up where the preceding track leaves off, giving the impression that the music is more or less on auto-pilot. The programmed percussion is relentless and intrusive, most of all on the third long track "Piesnia viatrou (Song of Winds)" where most of the emotional drama occurs. Actual raw black metal is very subdued and limited to grinding bass.

The only really outstanding element of WoS' style is the frighteningly cold and grim background ambience that suggests a huge ghost choir roaming through the skies and riding the frost winds. These phantoms sing no actual lyrics but warble their own terrible hymns under a heavy shroud of icy reverb. If only WoS had allowed these ice creatures a song all their own to sing a cappella so that listeners could gain some idea of their utter derangment and sinister designs for humanity! As it is, the stand-out track for these voices is "Piesnia viatrou (Song of Winds)" which, for all the click-clacking percussion, features them in all their shrill demented glory.

As the album progresses, it becomes more monotonous and boring to hear as there's no sense of any tension building up. When the recording ends after 30+ minutes, it leaves the impression that it hasn't progressed very far from where it started and the whole work appears unfinished.

Less synth looping repetition and more guitars and original melodies and riffs would improve WoS' music and give those voices an accompaniment worthy of their madness and despair.

From Ukraine, Belarus and Russia respectively comes this split recording whose title "Простор" might best be translated from Russian and Ukrainian into English as "expanse". First cab off the rank is Ukraine's Yarek Ovich who offers up a short quiet piece combining raw BM background noise-guitar shower with cold serene night ambience, plucked guitar melody and a sparkly keyboard counter-melody loop. This is a bleak and depressing soundscape guaranteed to wilt the flowers, turn milk sour and bring rain clouds into the sky above where you're sitting if you're listening to this piece. Aided by a toy-like repeating synth loop whose pained tones seem to droop ever lower – maybe the battery is running low from all that brooding melancholy - repetition grinds this despondent dirge deep into your subconscious.

Coming from Belarus, Wisdom of Shadows offers a slightly more cheery piece (though perhaps the folk-like cheer wasn't intended) with stodgy synthesiser rhythms, melodies and beats. The style is synth-orchestral / raw BM with ambient and some melodic hard rock elements. The best parts of this track are the cold blizzard ambience and the occasional lead guitar soloing but apart from those, the piece is an undistinguished instrumental work depending very heavily on repetition and layers of melody loops.

From Russia comes Voice of the Wanderer with a much tougher song of folk BM tremolo guitar trill, harsh singing and some heavy-handed synth melodrama playing. Of the three tracks, this one is old school melodic raw BM featuring vocals and quite a lot of clean lead guitar soloing. There are a few little surprises in this track that elevate it above average for this style of BM.

The Russian and Ukrainian efforts are not bad at all and would have made a nice little split single by themselves. The Ukrainian piece lasts just long enough that it's not completely boring in spite of the unchanging repetition and some of the sound effects are original and interesting. The Russian contribution could have done without the synth orchestral music as it's quite varied in its other instrumentation and experiments a little with its beats, riffs and rhythms to spring surprising changes in mood on listeners. The Belarusian work takes up half the split's playing time with flat generic-sounding synth music that for all I know and care could have been an auto-pilot. For that reason, you'd be better off checking other work by Yarek Ovich and Voice of the Wanderer if you can.

Hmm … the more interesting music was too short to be really expansive and immersive to justify the split release's title.