Underground Sounds: Ljosazabojstwa – Sychodžańnie

Label: Hellthrasher Productions
Band: Ljosazabojstwa
Origin: Belarus

To the swamps of Belarus with Ljosazabojstwa

I didn’t come up with Ljosazabojstwa, but it’s by far one of the most exotic band names I’ve encountered. The band hails from Belarus and in a sense for many people this is as exotic as it gets since the mere mention of the country evokes a grey canvas of unknownness. This is the second release by the Minsk natives and it is titled ‘Sychodžańnie’.

The group is fairly fresh, having only started in 2013. The previous release was a demo titled ‘Staražytnaje licha’. The band likes to blend black metal atmosphere with some death metal swagger. This results in a sound that can probably be closest described by comparing it to Behemoth. Still, thanks to the Russian language there’s a special vibe to this group.

Ljosazabojstwa has a sound that is both clean and menacing but holds a death metal groove just as well. There’s also the odd classical experience, like on ‘Zhuba’, where the lone guitar player demonstrates his icy skill. Or that eerie organ intro ‘Pozirk u biezdan’, that sounds like it comes straight from a horror film in those glory days. There’s a deep, heavy groove to the menacing death metal riffs on the first track. It slowly waxes and wanes, like the heavy clashes of sea against the shores.

The deep, abyssal grunts of the vocalist really work well with that slow and steady sound. You’d almost put a doom sticker on this heavy, creeping sound when listening to ‘Piekla’. Spoken word parts fill up the blanks in the story, but soon we launch into the next assault of the song. Rapid, thrashing guitar play and that gravelly, intimidating sound speed up and slow down to beat at the listener. This is music to overwhelm, to strike fear into the listener with the continuous ominous vibe. The use of those synths is definitely striking on that front.

Though the sound of these Belarussians is pretty straight forward, they manage to display a lot of different facets. Various ways to absolutely crush any sort of opponents, to deluge their listeners in harsh, Belarussian swamps. An excellent piece of music with an exotic flavor to it.

 

 

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