The third album from Norwegian band Bismarck, the essential fare here is stoner doom with atmospheric post-rock, and “an uncompromising mix of sludgy riffs and psychedelic nuances”. “Vourukasha” is described as “a metaphysical journey through time and space”.
The dark rhythm of “Sky Father”, which opens up the album, is reminiscent of later black metal bands like Khold. This keeps the winds going through the blackened clouds. Eventually it drops down into stoner-sludge of the darkest kind. The roaring vocals appear from a distance, as you’d find on a Neurosis or Cult of Luna record. The rhythm on “Echoes” again is deep-grained with passages of transition expressed through dark reflective passages and even a haunting vocal. Atmospheric it is, as we drift through a dark space in the sky. Finally, it breaks out into an explosive finish before cranking back down like a leaden weight. By contrast “Kigal” starts unexpectedly with a hand-drum. The bass guitar is played moodily. The song progresses calmly with a mystical Middle Eastern aura filling the air. This precedes a short melancholic interlude The Tree of All Seeds”.
As if the band has had enough of that, we return to the harsh downtrodden sound of “Sky Father” in the form of the title song. Harsh roars and a deep rhythm make up the atmosphere. The song slows and becomes more drawn out, slowing down further as it enters a mysterious world filled with a droning sound and solitary guitar. The mood gets heavier. The drum pounds, the instrumentals are weighty and there’s the customary roar. What I was hearing was a series of sounds without continuity or, to my ears, significance. The album closes with the nine-minute Ocean Dweller”. Starting slowly there is a drone which could come from the cosmos or the ocean. A quiet voice slowly sings a hymn as the drone continues and the sky is filled with transient sounds. The drum beats slowly. The vocalist roars. We have entered a doom-filled world now, and with cosmic darkness surrounding us that’s how it ends.
“Vourukasha” demonstrates the range of the band, but I wasn’t convinced that this all fitted together as a coherent album. Its strength is the creation of fearsome atmospheres, and I’d have been gladly overwhelmed by the gradual or explosive accumulation of them, but it didn’t work like that and I wasn’t.
(6/10 Andrew Doherty)
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