Two years after Russian post-Black Metal duo Olhava released Reborn, they return with Sacrifice (Avantgarde Music), their sixth full-length record which is no mean feat considering their self-titled debut only arrived in 2019. 

So the word “prolific” might be somewhat of an understatement, as would the words “Long-Player” – as Sacrifice comes in at a whopping eighty-six minutes, quite the run time considering it features just four fully fledged tracks, and four synth/drone interludes. 

The four songs on Sacrifice follow a pretty similar pattern and the record opens with the sixteen-minute “Forever With You” and an atmospheric overture with the sound of nature personified by a running river and birds chirping, while a soft synth slowly builds the tension. 

Soft shimmering guitars drop the music into ethereal blackgaze waters with angelic vocal chants, and then the subtlest of blackened shrieks which are so deep in the mix that they are fully submerged as part of the background of the music, which has an overall lo-fi quality to the production. The rhythm is dictated by the percussion which swerves from a plodding march into blast-beats and back again, all the while a delicate synth-line maintains the overall ethereal tone. 

This is beautifully composed post-Metal which ebbs and flows, taking you on an absorbing journey of melancholic sound. An ambient drop around the seven-minute mark leaves a gentle isolated strumming guitar which slowly meanders with atmospheric leads into the second break of the song, eventually building into a frenetic yet still quite mellow and organic sounding climax. 

This pretty much sums up each song, slow-burning soundscapes often instrumental, sometimes with the softest of vocal shrieks, and all combining to create a dreamlike state for the listener. 

The title track does offer a slightly darker tone where the synths are a deeper octave, but this really is just a subtle refinement. Andrey Novozhilov’s vocals do also have a slightly more aggressive style to them here, but still sit pretty passively within the overall sound of the music. 

Sacrifice is unquestionably an intriguing creation, but at the near ninety-minute runtime it is a little indulgent. You’ll certainly need to be in the right mood to allow yourself to really sink into the rich textures of the album, in order to fully immerse and enjoy in its one intended entirety … but it is worth persevering at least once. 

Buy the album here:
https://olhava.bandcamp.com/album/sacrifice

7 / 10
ABSTRAKT_SOUL