Underground Sounds: Trna – Lose Yourself to Find Peace

Label: Elusive Sound
Band: Trna
Origin: Russia

Though they describe themselves as blackgaze, there’s something to say for just calling it postrock. This Russian band has no vocals and creates the soaring, huge soundscapes that you would associate with the genre in its glory days. I’m not sure if that is a period in the past, since there’s still great material out there, but Trna brings it to its origins.

This album is the second one by Saint Petersburg group Trna, which is a Russian three-piece postrock band. The group has been playing live around Eastern Europe and describes itself as a hurricane of emotions, referring to their music. Bass player Anton Galaullin is also active in Show Me A Dinosaur and sludge group Pwyll.

The record kicks of with the almost 20 minute mark breaking ‘Gale’. A fuzzy wall of distortion is raised up gently and through it a dancable rhythm and repetitive riffs soar in a very free falling way. It reminds me a bit of the band Amusement Parks On Fire, on their first album. It is also like standing in a gale, with the distorted guitars soaking you like it happens when you face the wind near sea. Slowly the song becomes more tense, thanks to more intense drumming. Towards the end, the sound becomes indeed like a hurricane, raging about you, only to slowly disappear towards the end.

‘Calm’ offers indeed what it claims to do. The trickling guitars and the slow progression at first create a sense of tranquility, but then the barrage of drums and bass launches, building up to the typical black metal static realm of hyper speed playing, to achieve a more frantic plane of that same tranquility. It becomes a thick, sonic tapestry that somehow retains a calm indeed. Slowly, but with much drama it then stars building down with great heaves to end up with that tranquil silence again.

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