Review Summary: A garden of Eden...
Russia’s Grima have always had a certain efficiency in regards to their aesthetic. Fairly, the band themselves could be described as a workhorse of black metal tweaked by the occasionally well placed accordion or folk-laced atmospherics. Regardless, Grima’s brand of black metal tip-toed on the more conventional side of the genre, taking a high gain approach hand in hand with blast beats and warbling tremolo. The goal wasn’t to reinvent the wheel by any means, instead the compositions brought to life by the Sysoev brothers brought layering atmosphere and typical black metal dexterity together while maintaining the furor held in such regard from longtime extreme metal fans. When we couple this with the fact the moniker have released four full-lengths in the space of six years, it could be said that Grima have been steadily honing their craft — of all the records that show growth, their previous,
Will Of The Primordial is most poignant, capturing a higher sense of atmosphere and melancholy through the use of the group’s more folk-based soundscapes.
Typically,
Rotten Garden begins with typical black metal proponents, its introductory track, “Cedar and Owls”, is awash with blasting percussion and shrieking screams clearly outlining the visceral nature of a black metal nature. Comparatively with the rest of the genre, the Grima black metal aesthetic is quite accessible, sticking to a varied use of melody and atmosphere to carry the casual listener along its path and despite the cohesion and the well-rounded execution...there’s still not too much separating the album from its peers within the genre. That’s where the accordion comes in. Where death metal leaned heavily on the saxophone a couple years back, Grima takes an avant approach using the likes of a squeezebox breaking up the calamity of high gain guitar riffs, breakneck drumming and aesthetically pleasing black metal vocals. By adding the occasional bird noise or left field sound source, Grima breaks away from the norm, tilting the aesthetic into a more appealing portrait of sounds. There’s a lot of detail, but the depth of the art is less “lush” and more “dense” by the record’s mid sections.
“Old Oak” in particular reinforces this sentiment. The track’s larger acoustic focus sweeps through a background noise akin to forest sounds. Light piano melodies interweave in a cinematic fashion. Little note trills provide an imagery of raindrops falling from foliage, while gentle moods caress the album’s more tender, less abrasive edges. It’s a two minute reprieve
Rotten Garden requires before launching into the titular (and longest) composition. “Rotten Garden” takes much of the gentle nuance from the preceding track before building into a crescendo of sorts. The build isn’t instant, providing a slope to which Grima’s anguish climbs. There’s melancholy here, as well as an emotive flux as
Rotten Garden’s climes take hold on each section. The track itself is clearly a sum of its parts, brought together.
The record’s closing moments further build on the cinematic energies of Grima’s atmospheric nuance, but maintain the vital, more mordant nature to which the likes of
Will Of The Primordial and
Tales Of The Enchanted Woods only touched on.
Rotten Garden’s selling point however, is how well it’s put together — but its shortcomings stem from a genre spiraling away from creativity while resorting to the same patterns of atmosphere and nuance. It’s a small gripe, but there’s no doubt that Grima’s brand of metal is limited slightly in a modern day of music saturation. Grima’s
Rotten Garden may have a snake, but the apple itself is still worth a bite.
