THE BEAST

Arktotus – Black Veins - Reviewed At ZwareMetalen .com! Check it out here at this link: https://zwaremetalen.com/albumrecensies/arktotus-black-veins

Nothing better than to start the morning with a nice cup of coffee and a new music. This morning it's the turn of the Russian band Arktotus. This company comes from a town north-west of Moscow. Quite a distance in the direction of the Scandinavian birthplace of black metal. And with that you will probably get an idea of what you can expect from the third studio album of this quartet. First, let's finish the rest of the checklist. An almost unreadable, garb woody logo? Check! Possibly a pentagram and/or a goat's head hidden in the logo? Double check! A dark, line-drawn cover with skulls, rune writing and an image of our almighty father who is in hell, Satan? Check, check and check! Visually, it's all fine! But what about the most important thing: the music?

After a theatrical acoustic intro, the band almost immediately goes loose in top gear. It is nowhere subtle and gives little food for thought. This is already evident from titles such as Plague, The Lord Of Darkness, The Chaos Of The Underworld and Wind Of Death. The songs are played nicely with tempos, but you can't call it technical or progressive anywhere. The men can all play well and it all sounds convincing; the black blood certainly flows through their veins. The one who strikes me most positively is singer (and guitarist) Nikolay "Cimeries" Lotoev: he screams and growls really doom to us!
Arktotus himself describes the bands' music as melodic black. But I have to say that those melodic pieces are very well hidden. Most of what we are presented with is black from the old school, executed at high speed. Personally, I think the second part of the album is stronger than the first. In addition to all the uptempo pieces, this one has a bit more variety and here also some more melody emerges, although it is very careful and never long. The most notable song is the last one aptly titled Outro. Here no repetition of the intro (also just titled Intro) or a bible text read backwards but just another instrumental song. But then one that is out of place with the rest: nice and unwieldy and slow. A trick that Dimmu Borgir has also successfully applied a few times. But that's where the comparison with that band ends. If you want to compare Arktotus with something, you should look for it in bands such as Sacramentum, Thulcandra or Unanimated.

There is nothing wrong with the production. It is also as the coffee should be: pitch black, bitter and scorching. Now I like to have a lump of sugar in it myself, and I miss that promised piece of sweet melody a bit. What remains is a good dose of caffeine. But does it keep you awake? Yes, that works, so it's great bakkie. But is not one of those cat poop coffee praised by connoisseurs. He listens nicely enough but startlingly or memorable? No, not that... - ZwarMetalen

Release Date: April 29, 2022

FFO: Thulcandra, Sacramentum, Unanimated

Location: Unknown

ARKTOTUS was created in 2006 by Cimeries as a one-man project. In early 2007 a full line-up was recruited. This is how the team formed their unique Melodic Black Death Metal style. In these 16 years, ARKTOTUS has shared the stage with a lot of bands in more than 1000 concerts.

Support the band on Bandcamp!

Follow the band at these links:

https://www.facebook.com/arktotus/

Label
https://linktr.ee/Kvlt_und_Kaos_Productions
http://kvltundkaos.at/
https://kvltundkaosproductions.bandcamp.com/