Review Summary: From simmering to boiling, from contemplation to frustration.
For reviewing purposes, it seemed important for me to understand what spurred DK Energetyk to release two full-length albums within the span of one year. Maybe there’s some high-brow concept at play? Maybe the two albums combined form some sort of an overarching narrative? Maybe they represent different sides of the same coin? However, a quick skimming through a couple of the band’s interviews confirmed my initial hypothesis: they just had too many songs for one album. Yakiv and the boys just kept writing throughout 2022 and 2023, and they had free access to the studio and the recording equipment, so why not release some more post-punk?
Luckily, it’s not like nothing has changed in comparison with the first LP. For one thing, the band has decided to speed things up quite a bit. The album opens with three fast-paced songs featuring more intensive drumming and Yakiv adding a healthy dose of rage and urgency to his singing. The second song “Path part 2” is particularly evil, with Yakiv dreaming about driving an awl through the heart of a taxi driver who is going too slow, taking the wheel and flooring the gas pedal. Them traffic jams could make anyone lose their mind, ain’t it true?
However, the album reaches its next peak when the band temporarily abandons the speed and the rage and goes for a more epic feel. The fourth song is basically an ode to the Sun, with its majestic atmosphere and Yakiv’s voice going extra deep it even calls to mind the similarly themed “Sonne” by Rammstein:
Oh, Sun, magnificent Sun
Beginning and the end of life
Oh, Sun, magnificent Sun
I’ll come alive with your first light
However, angst and frustration remain the main emotions of the album, with Yakiv ranting on a whole range of topics, from the more abstract hardships to some very down-to-earth problems, such as badly repaired roads or family issues. Which is where the band strikes gold again. Unlike the first two parts that open the album, “Path part 3” does not move at high speed, instead featuring more somber melodies and a rare instance of venturing outside of post-punk as it opens and closes with some folky choir singing. However, what hits close to home for me is the song’s lyrical content. It tells a story of a little child listening to his parents quarreling savagely behind the wall of his room on New Year’s Eve. The kid just had a nice New Year celebration at his pre-school and is still wearing his rabbit costume from the festivities, but at home instead of presents and sweets his parents are treating him to a prolonged bout of yelling and mutual accusations. Yakiv’s singing reaches new emotional highs for this song, and, at some point, he actually resorts to barely coherent screaming, reflecting the deranged state of mind of a child exposed to domestic violence. “They are breaking the dishes again, he started hitting her again, when will this end,
why won’t they just let me sleep?” You don’t have to go through something like this personally to sympathize, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Yakiv is singing from experience. A nineties kid in Ukraine. We’ve all been through this.
Well, it’s time to go back from processing my childhood traumas to actual reviewing. To sum up, “Path” is a longer and angstier version of DK Energetyk’s debut album which retains a certain level of quality throughout its runtime but excels in its rawest emotional moments. For me both albums have roughly the same impact, each featuring a handful of songs that I really like, a handful of songs that are just fine, and one song that has an especially strong emotional impact personally for me. The first album is leaner, but this one is meaner. For a new listener the rule of thumb is simple: if you like the band’s first album, you’ll probably like this one. If you don’t, you probably shouldn’t bother with their output at all.
