Arda - Severnyi Krest (Review)

Once I saw a letter on my e-mail. Content was approximately this: "You write reviews on Japanese bands. You don't have good music in Russia? ". I thought about these words. Russia have good music, but all good bands were created in 80s and 90s. In last 20 years Russia has no decent bands.

My Rating: 74/100

Source - www.metal-archives.com

Russia has a stupid financial system - unfinished capitalism, which was created by immigrants from socialism. And if a project lives longer than 4-5 years, then it can be titled "legendary" - it nothing fundamentally can stop. But I will not discuss our system, I'll tell you about an interesting band. Band was founded in 2000. 17 years of activity in the world, which changes every hour is a great indicator.

Let's start review with composer. Very weak composer's work. Artistic task is formulated very simply. Performance at a very high level, but work of composer is frank quickie. It seems that composer did not exist at all. That is, instrumentalists improvised during the recording. I don't want to say that it's bad. But if we want to do work well, then we need to prepare thoroughly for this.

Lyric about courage, heroism, strong personality is a very fertile soil for many metal bands. This is a very good theme. Yes, these guys don't get the material from most interesting angle - not enough just to drive at full speed, road can be bumpy. What can you do, Eastern Europeans, they are like that. But it's worth noting that voice is wonderful. Feels very strong vocalist. Vocal techniques are monotonous, but voice is very good.

Instrumental especially does't stand out. But it's performed exelent. An interesting decision to use several guitarists: several people can solve an artistic tasks with maximum shades. But also there is one strange decision: use of a guitar with dropped tuning. For power metal is typical use of guitars with standart or Drop D tunings. Sometimes you can hear Drop C tuning, but this is a rare phenomenon for power metal. But here we hear Drop B tuning. A high voice with a low guitar tuning is a strange decision.

Rhythm section also sounds good. But sound is monotonous. In fourth track drummer tried to portray diversity, but it turned out badly. Again bad work of composer.

Band has an excellent level of performance. Their advantages perfectly hide shortcomings. They have a great talent, but in the end we see only an middle-rated European band. But this is not the most interesting thing in this entry. Like many well-known bands, they follow the already known way. And this is what I don't like Western bands - they have reached a certain level, after which they keep it. No steps forward, no new ideas, only normal retention. Yes, one can hold discussions for a long time about the fact that everything is relative. But they can do better.