Originally written by K. Scott Ross.
Last year, I wrote that I hoped that Yaromisl, the mind behind one-man Ukranian black/folk band Zgard, would “take a little time off from cranking out material in order to refine his sound.” That was after listening to Contemplation, Zgard’s fourth full-length in three years. Well, it’s clear that Yaromisl didn’t care for my advice, because he’s back just a little over a year later with Totem, his fifth LP. And it’s another hour-plus of music, with songs ranging from eight to nine minutes, so it doesn’t look like he’s managed to learn how to edit himself yet either. Even given that dismal prognostication, though, it’s still an impressive rate of production, so let’s see if anything has changed in the world of Zgard.
Surprisingly, it has! Instead of playing less, Zgard just decided to play faster. That’s the basic change from Contemplation to Totem, and it works well to bring Zgard out of the realm of “the dull background chatter” and into the category of music you’d actually like to listen to actively. Yaromisl has also gone strong on the folk elements this time around (makes sense for an album called Totem), which were the strongest parts last time. So consider it a +5 to energy and a +2 to songwriting. Level up.
The intro track, “Dismal Visions,” is still an intro track, and as such is skippable, but if you choose to listen to it, it sets the mood fairly well. The crackling of fire, the chanting of chants, a deep droning horn. These are the sorts of sounds the come to mind when one hears the word “totem.” The first real song, “Land of Legends,” immediately reveals the change in energy level between Totem and Contemplation. Fast drums, fast guitars, fast screaming. Compared to the last album, the sound is also more modern and polished. Whether you view that as a positive depends largely on how you feel about modern production techniques, but to this critic’s ears, it gives the album a lively feeling rather than a plastic one. Synthetic choirs play a large part in the ambience of this first song, but thankfully at around 2:40 some live flute playing joins the mix. Still, this is an eight minute song that would have been much more enjoyable as a five minute one.
Next up is “Descendants of the Thunder,” and holy fuck, what is the horrible racket? The first time I heard the song, I immediately stopped my mp3 because I thought a YouTube video of a stadium full of vuvuzela horns must have started playing in the background. No, that cacophonous din was actually intentional. Maybe it’s bagpipes? Maybe it actually is vuvuzelas. Who can tell? Thankfully, the honking doesn’t last long, and “Descendants” actually becomes one of the best songs on the album. Yaromisl’s shrieking is very high and nasal, not to mention monotonous, but the chorus of the song is a layered chant that gives an triumphal feeling to the song. There are acoustic guitar moments and a break to more chanting over droning strings and the sound of rain. All together, “Descendants” makes for a great example of what Zgard can do when a concept comes together. Again, this is a nine minute song, and could have been improved with a deft edit.
The tale continues. The title track is highly enjoyable, with a repeating flute and mouth harp motif (nine minutes long, etc, etc). “Sorrow” slows things down a lot, which is a nice midpoint for the album (eight minutes). “Forgive Us Nature” has one of the best melodic black metal guitar lines and another good integration of chant (9:15, the longest song on the album). “Dark Lord of the Carpathians” uses diminished chords, a tricky mouth harp line and what sounds like screams of terror far off in the wind to bring a sense of eerie dread to the proceedings (8:40, which is practically nine minutes again). Album closer “The North” is the fastest yet, reaching nearly Immortal levels of speed at some points, and despite being the shortest song here, it’s still goddamn seven and three-quarters of a minute long.
If I’m being harsh to Zgard, it’s because I actually enjoy Totem a lot. Unlike Contemplation, this isn’t just a middling bit of boring folk metal. There are a lot of very good components here. But being a one-man band, there’s nobody around to tell Yaromisl that enough is good enough. The album is simply too long for its own good. Cutting about two minutes out of each song would have resulted in a much, much stronger forty-five minute album that I wouldn’t hesitate to rank highly on my year end list. In this state, I still recommend it for anyone who enjoys folk or melodic black metal, but I doubt that it’ll get the wider acceptance that it could have deserved. I’m definitely excited to see the huge growth Zgard has achieved in the last year. But they can still do so much better.
