Friday, November 19, 2010

Ritual Front - "Излучения / Strahlungen" [2008]

Artist: Ритуальный Фронт
Title: Излучения
Genre: Neofolk / Neoclassical
Country: Russia
Release date: 2008

Track List:
  1. Вечный огонь
  2. Лети, птица, лети
  3. Лиенц
  4. Человек против Времени
  5. Сон Европы
  6. Солнце движется к Северу
  7. Всеосень
In my opinion, it's the best album by Ritual Front, and the only one I've actually enjoyed. Their debut release, "Lightnings Over Crimson Hill", was just awful, and the consequent one, "Sun of the Dead", was listenable (but nothing really special), but this album is very good. Why do i think so? In the beginning of their career, they were unoriginal on many levels (starting from their name - (spi)RITUAL FRONT) and relied more on provocative "crypto-fascist" image and symbolism than on the quality of their music. However, now they managed to do a very decent release. "Strahlungen" is very melodic, and brings truly melancholic atmosphere. Ideal music to listen in early autumn...

Speaking of their ideology, it's interesting to see how they insisted to call their music "combat folk" in the beginning (in opposite to "dark folk" - because of combative nature of their music), and now their songs like "Сон Европы" contain a very apparent anti-war message. Moreover, now they're orthodox christians, even though they stated in their 2003 interview: "We don't have and don't want to have anything to do with orthodoxy and christianity in general, because we don't view it as any productive force" (see their interview in "Stigmata" zine for more info). Anyway, I don't care much about their beliefs as long as their music is good... and their lyrics aren't bad as well. "The flags here aren't the same, the rituals are forgotten, and the new truth came from over the sea, but we still are under the same cold sky, and the corn grows where the blood had been shed... the funeral marches shake the air, the eternal flame throws the light on our faces..." Well, my translation might be very rough, but I guess the message is pretty obvious (and not vey surprising, since WWII and its consequences is a very common theme in neofolk and martial industrial).

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