Welicoruss are without a doubt one of the most promising black metal acts to come from Russia in the last few years. Actually, the band has already been in existence since 2002, when mastermind Alexey Boganov founded it as a solo project. Three years later, he joined forces with some other musicians to transform the project into a full-fledged band, yet it was only after the group re-located from the icy depths of their Siberian home to Prague a few years ago, that they also gained noticable recognition outside Russia. This makes their fourth album "Siberian Heathen Horde", released on 27th March 2020, their first studio output to be met with the newly gained plus of public interest, which was further bolstered by a series of fairly impressive live gigs the band had become known for over the last few years.
Indeed, "Siberian Heathen Horde" does yield some concessions to this new situation. For the first time in the band's history, the album-title as well as all of the song-titles are held in English instead of Russian. To me, personally, this is a gratifying innovation, always having preferred English songs over whatever native tongue a given band might speak, and I assume that most European fans will be of the same opinion. The English titles make the album appear much more easily accessible than the avowedly very frostbitten Cyrillic inscriptions of the band's previous albums.
Musically however, Welicoruss have remained mostly true to their style, only introducing moderate levels of innovation - which is worth mentioning, considering that all of the band's members save for singer Alexey have been exchanged since the last album. Despite this, the band still pracices a symphonic brand of black metal, devoid only of the pagan-influence which was noticeable on some of their earlier work. Records of this genre naturally run the risk of over-using their symphonic features, thus drowning out the metal elements, but Welicoruss confidently avoid this issue, establishing a steady balance between the hard and the epic. On "Siberian Heathen Horde", you will find plenty of skull-crushing black metal-fury, which is indeed at the core of this record, but it is skillfully interwoven with tender, almost fragile melodies, the transitions between these two poles of Welicoruss' music coming across as natural and fluent.
Looking at the individual songs of the album, it is quite difficult to pick a favourite, as this is a very consistent record. The songs clearly profite from the order which they are placed in on the tracklist and so the album is best listenned to in its entirity. However, it is beyond dispute that the opener "Spellcaster" and the title track "Siberian Heathen Horde" kick off the record in truly magnificent fashion, two striking examples of the band's most skillful execution of their style of symphonic black metal. Some of the other songs such as "Frostbounded" or "Tree Of Nations" are not as memorable, albeit still well above average. All of the songs are rather short and concise, given the genre's penchant for more sprawling compositions, and this does definitely benefit the album. The eight tracks plus the short instrumental "Crossroad Of Life" clock in at just about fourty-five minutes, preventing the album from becoming as tedious and strenuous an experience as some of their genre colleagues. Finally, the splendid performance of drummer Ilya Tabachnik on this album should not go unmentioned. He keeps all the different song elements together with ease and sets his own accents where necessary, notably in the atmospheric drum beats leading up to the opening track.
On the whole, this programmatically titled fourth studio album may well be the one that opens to Welicoruss the gates to broad public appreciation. "Siberian Heathen Horde" is an eclectic yet coherent, high-quality black metal-effort that does not lose out to most of the works the genre's more well-known acts released over the last few years. Having never considered myself the biggest of black metal-fans, I recommend this album to anyone who has an ear for the dramatic and wants to embrace the sonic manifestation of the wide, frosty plains of of Siberia in all its beauty. Genre-devotees will anyhow pick up this record sooner or later.
Highlights: Spellcaster; Siberian Heathen Horde; Metaphysical
Watch here the video made for the song "Spellcaster":