Darkrad - Abnormal Love

Cold Meat Industry was always one of my favorite labels and I usually try to lay my hands on the products that arrive from the house of mister Karmanik. I can state that the first industrial records that I heard in my life twenty years ago came from Cold Meat and they definitely effected my musical taste development. I was very disappointed when the label stopped its activity for a while. Somewhere around a year and a half ago Cold Meat passed a process of resurrection and hit the market with few long awaited releases. I was one of those that had high expectations from the material which unfortunately were fulfilled partly. It was clear (for me at least) that Roger's musical taste transformed a little bit and I couldn't be fully satisfied with that. I think that few records that were out during early 2012 could be kept back in archives, but who am I to decide after all.

Lots of good old school bands left Cold Meat during its period of stagnation which can be truly understandable. That's why when I saw a new name Darkrad that showed up in some prerelease advertisement of the upcoming albums, I wasn't too surprised though the origin of this band made me definitely curious. Rarely a band from Russia joins label of such a level. I made a little research through the net and discovered that woman behind this project actually is a well-known figure on the local scene hiding behind a nickname Janadark. She also had some intense live activity during last few years not only as a standalone performance, but also collaborative sets with the names like Empusae and similar. After watching few videos on YouTube, I gained enough background material, and this was the right time to start spinning the first officially known album from Jana under the code name 'Abnormal Love'.

As soon as the music becomes a reflection of personal world and deep emotional experience, I can easily judge that Jana has a highly diverse individuality when the mixture of genres and techniques that are used in this album is truly wide. "In Order to See" is the first track of the album and the diversity is all around even on the early stages. Started as a light ambient melody it transforms into much darker piece just after two minutes of its run. "Umrete" ("you will die" a translation from Russian) is a highly cinematic track that rolls forward with waves of wide whirling layer kind of a wind noise and brings an atmosphere of a horror movie or something, where sonic pulsation gives a little bit of rhythm as well. This track reminds me some early works from Atrium Carceri. It moves slowly towards the third composition "Harvester" that contains a really massive industrial beat like a pulsation of the heart of some machinery or a plant guided by a distant background woman chanting voice. Again the wide atmosphere presents there as well to open more space for the sound.

At this stage of the album's run the mood suddenly changes when Jana transforms the track under the name "Odinokie" (lonely) into a blast of death industrial somewhere in the middle of it with a very dirty industrial sound and a distant singing that for my opinion didn't fit into the emotional balance of this composition. Apparently, this was a turning point of the whole record. The following three tracks become much more intensive and fast, when the author starts to operate with heavy elements of rhythmic noise. "When They Scream" still balances on the edge of ritualistic dark ambient with extremely dark atmosphere and a drum beat together with a distorted screaming vocals. But "The Red" and "Mrakmur" totally fall into the field of the kind of industrial music that I expect to hear on the products coming out of Hands Productions and not Cold Meat Industry. I couldn't understand this change in emotional impulse of the album, maybe there is some concept behind this, though for me it lays beyond my comprehension. Even after five or six constant spins back and forward this move failed to impress me and left me guessing about its purpose.

'Abnormal Love' continues where the track "When They Scream" left the ground and once again raises the case of cinematic atmosphere with a strong witchery touch when Jana starts to declaim here distorted vocal session over the dark floating melody. With "Ogromnoe Nebo" (huge skies) a light and airy feeling is injected by a slow floating melody as a preparation for the finishing track. "I See You Cry" is full of choral singing and cathedral special effects with bells and litany chants, a good way to finish the album. I am sure that this composition reflects some special and deeply personal moment in the author's life becoming a conclusion of the journey wrapped in a nicely decorated digipack.

Finally, I am left with controversial feelings. On one hand, the music that is presented on this cd is quite good. Sometimes it is primitive and naïve, but in general it leaves a positive impression. But on the other hand, I am disappointed with the lack of harmony in its structure. I truly believe that if those three rhythmic tracks are removed from this record and released as a separated EP, they could have a bigger success. In Janadark's further albums I prefer to hear more compositions like "Harverster" or "Abnormal Love", because I think that her potential is much higher when she combines a dark ambient music together with her hypnotizing passionate chanting and a slight touch of ritualism through the slight drumming. Anyhow, from this point I leave this case for your personal judgment. Feb 14 2013