Turin Turambar - Bród.Smród.Ubóstwo

TURIN TURAMBAR - Bród.Smród.Ubóstwo (Self released CD 2013)

This album is so fuckin weird, but I do love more and more with every next listen. This is Turin Turambar’s third album “Bród.Smród.Ubóstwo”… And yeah, I only just finished listening and reviewing the previous CD “Rzeczpospolita czartowska”, which was so bloody excellent and Ataman Tolovy has already sent me his new recording (not his last one, as he also just finished an EP titled “Boży plan zniszczenia”)… I wonder if this guy has enough time to sleep, eat and fuck or he just takes some “pills” (hehe) and stay sleepless playing and recording music 24/7 hehe? But interestingly the quantity of Turin Turambar releases comes in hand with their quality, so no one should moan about such frequency of releases. I won’t, especially as – like I mentioned above - “Bród.Smród.Ubóstwo” is really awesome album and I really enjoyed it a lot.

“Bród.Smród.Ubóstwo” isn’t an easy album to listen to. If one compares it to “Rzeczpospolita czartowska” then you must realize that the previous effort was more straight forward, I think I can risk saying it was more like traditional sounding metal album, but with some original, bizarre and progressive touches and obviously also with those totally spectacular vocals of Ataman. Well, “Bród.Smród.Ubóstwo” goes far beyond the previous album and is more experimental, more demanding type of music… Still well rooted in metal sound and mainly obviously in black metal, but the way the music has been composed, with those bizarre riffs, unusual patterns and all the surprises, plus the vocals – all these things make it sound very original and as I said it creates very demanding sound and atmosphere. I wrote “experimental” and well, to me this music is quite experimental and I don’t know if you agree with such description, but if you just listen to the opening song “Anioły wyklęte”, then you can already hear that Turin Turambar is just not your typical and average black metal band. It is slightly close to Mayhem’s recent LPs in some way, but maybe “Bród.Smród.Ubóstwo” is not as chaotic and fast… But when listening to it you can hear so many different layers, so many different ideas and riffs used for the whole album that if the first listen will give you a headache (because it will be difficult to find yourself within this maelstrom), then each next spin of the CD will let you discover it more and more… It is challenging, it is demanding, if you hear such “Melancholia” you may scratch your head, because some of these things may have no sense, but it is false impression… Turin Turambar creates killer atmosphere and if Ataman uses some bizarre song structures, some completely cacophonic riffs sometimes, then they don’t create noise, but have sense… especially with those vocals. Man, I must say that Ataman Tolovy starts to be one of my favourite vocalists… First of all, he wrote some awesome, awesome lyrics – and they are just as weird as the music really hehe… again they’re all in Polish, so most of you won’t understand them and I guess they would be just damn difficult to translate, for the way they’ve been written… but shit, I really love them. Something like “anioły wyklęte w rynsztokach bawią znalazły zajęcie czarownicę pławią…”. Damn, it is really cool. And what Ataman does with his voice is just excellent, especially in the title song... He’s got great expression, puts a lot of feeling to his vocal performance, so it is not a dull growling. Even something like “pani klęcząca… śpiewa… wszyscy razem… hey... Brud. Smród. Ubóstwo!!!!!” – it may sound stupid (or spontaneous), but the effect is awesome and somehow fits to the overall bizarre lyrical content of this song.

So yeah, everything sounds great here. Every song brings something different: for instance “Krew zepsuta” is somehow a bit faster, but it even has a riff, which sounds like classic heavy metal! Then “Fizys mięsista” is probably the most BIZARRE and cacophonic of them all, while killer “Ksenofag” has such a strong, dark and heavy chorus part that even the fans of pure old school doom / black metal will love it (“KSEENOOFAAAGGG” – that sounds almost like Acheron!)… It is 9 minutes long colossus, monumental and sick, with a lot of drone and distortion in its second. I also love “Roje moje” – awesome song... but really, there’s not even a single song, which I wouldn’t like at all... I don’t think though that everyone will enjoy this music. But if you ever manage to put your hands on “Bród.Smród.Ubóstwo” then give it few listens, try to get devoured by its atmosphere and just enjoy this excellent music…

Standout tracks: “Drogowskazy / B.S.U.”, “Ksenofag”, “Roje moje”

Final rate: 85/100