Zgard - Astral Glow (CD)

Review
Metal Revolution
7.3/10
20.03.2014

In the last couple of month, Ukraine has been on everyone’s lips, unfortunately not for its musical scene. It is about to change now, since I am not here to talk war and politics, but music.

Thus, I want to present you with another Ukrainian band, one-man (Yaromysl) outfit named Zgard. Astral Glow is his third album, all released with a year?! I guess it tells you the story of a highly enthusiastic, hard-working and dedicated black metal warrior, who wants to create the music of his own choice and on his own prerogatives. One can claim that Astral Glow continues where its predecessor left off, being very stylistic, addictive and haunting. He successfully handles all of the instruments, from occasional use of flute, frosty keyboard sound effects, gritty guitars and vocals filled with grief and sadness.

Most of the eight songs presented on this opus are mid-paced, but also long and epic containing simple yet stylish melodies of gloom, doom, folk and black metal. His style can best be described as ‘mid-paced melodic black metal’. It has this particular and characteristic vibe and chilling atmosphere to it. It also possesses many majestic and mesmerising tunes and beautiful landscapes. Meanwhile, what I liked most about it is its ability to maintain both its metallic edge and the atmospheric astral spirituality, esp. in his lyrics.

With some minor improvements this band/one-man project still has a bright future ahead of it and I’m very much looking towards Zgrad’s next release. Recommended for those into the likes of Drudkh, Dimmu Borgir, Summoning etc.

Author: Bato

Review
Metalizer
5/5

Украинский one-man проект Zgard продолжает гнуть линию, тянущуюся с предыдущего полноформатного альбома – "Reclusion". Причем это касается не только музыкальных характерных черт, но и иллюстрирования буклета, и общей концепции вкупе с техникой подачи музыкального материала. Единственный участник и основатель Zgard – Яромысл продолжает вливать свое странное сознание в виде атмосферного блэк метала сквозь призму язычества в этот шквал эмоций и бурю чувств под названием "Astral Glow", что можно перевести как астральный свет. Как и полагается – встречаем по одежке, а значит, логическим действием будет начать исследовать диск с его оформления. Красочная тенденция обнаруживается и здесь: странные создания, явно пришедшие к нам из других миров, и судя по лирике из текстов, то это отнюдь не потусторонние сущности из параллельных измерений, а какие-нибудь пришельцы, спустившиеся с других планет, почему-то так и хочется назвать их духами Карпатских лесов. С ними общаются люди с факелами, похожие то ли на шаманов, то ли на священников в рясах, на развалинах… опять-таки место сильно напоминающее Стоунхендж. Если, конечно, речь вообще идет о Земле. И этот яркий, астральный свет! Он просто бесподобен. А в тёмном, звездном небе сверкает сияющая звезда, не исключаю такой возможности, что подразумевался Сириус.
Главной особенностью Zgard является во всём доводить дело до конца. И если мы видим изумительно оформленное произведение искусства, то заложенный в нём концепт не отстает от сути его содержания. И тогда мы слышим полностью соответствующее этим параметрам отражение практически идеального музыкального сопровождения. Именно это безусловное качество проекта и подкупает. Готовясь заранее услышать нечто после впечатляющей обложки, ожидаемые и возлагаемые надежды оправдываются. Реализация задуманного совпадает с его конечным итогом, а когда все задачи выполнены и все цели достигнуты, то что ещё нужно?
Тексты по-прежнему полны ненависти к человечеству и по максимуму мизантропичны. Здесь и воспевание природы, и законы мироздания, и философия смысла жизни. Лирика так же, как и в прошлый раз, делится на два языка написания – русский и украинский. Даже не знаю, минус это или плюс, обычно я причисляю себя к сторонникам какого-то определенного языка и лучше бы это был русский, чем английский, но национальный колорит дороже – поэтому идеальным вариантом был бы родной язык музыканта.
Прежний набор инструментов: гитары, бас, ударные + синтезатор и флейта делают альбом грациозным и изящным - эти компоненты придают тонкие контуры релизу, а величественная атмосфера, пропитанная общим концептом единения с Вселенной через духовную гармонию и осознание своего предназначения в мире, в его глобальном понимании – выделяет главенствующие признаки "Astral Glow".
И несколько интересных фактов о релизе: альбом был записан практически параллельно с "Reclusion" – исток один, но они всё-таки разные, несмотря на общие сходства. "Reclusion" обладал магической способностью гипнотизировать слушателя, но на "Astral Glow" присутствует более быстрый и разноплановый материал. наталкивающий на размышления о сути нашего существования. Идеи, которые легли в его основу, появились как раз во время записи "Reclusion", который был целиком записан на студии Яромысла в Карпатских горах. А оформлением диска занималась студия Kogaion Art из Трансильвании. Релиз предоставлен BadMoodMan Music.

Атмосфера – 5/5
Техника – 5/5
Материал – 5/5
Реализация – 5/5

Author: Валентина PANTERA Катышева

Review
Pest Webzine
6.5/10

Ukraine, probably the most important one-man-bands exporter in Europe nowadays, brings us Zgard, a project started in 2010 but with already 3 full-length albums underbelt. This new, third, album from Zgard is made of 8 tracks and lasts for more than 70 minutes. Unfortunately there are so many things happening on this album and such a poor sound that after a while it becomes annoying. the baseline of this album is mid-tempo Black Metal but the keyboard backgrounds give it an Atmospheric touch, and the flute parts thrown in here and there come with that Pagan influence, so all in all this is a pretty complex release and even if the rhythms are repeting endlessly the guy behind Zgard managed to avoid the boredome element. Unfortunately it becomes chaotic too many times to keen an intact flow, but fans of this genre might find it a good release nonetheless. Honestly I won't play it anymore...

Author: Adrian

Review
Forgotten Path
7.5/10

I have been observing this Ukrainian project for quite a long time as all the albums that had been presented for the moment have left a really good impression. I would like to call Zgard the young brother of Raventale - both projects are related in a lot of terms. Firstly, the origin is the same. Then, the stylistics are alike: both bands are fond of atmospheric, Doom and Black Metal genres with the minimalistic spices of Folk. Finally, both Zgard and Raventale play music that is based on pagan and naturalistic ideology.
However, in this case Zgard remains the third little brother fool as it is in tales. I mean, not literally - they just have to sprout up to reach the level of creativity, quality and the overall picture of Raventale. As I said earlier, Zgard has much in common with the mentioned leaders of Ukraine - they play cold, quite tuneful Atmospheric Black Metal. I have to mention that on the newest album “Astral Glow” they use much more Folk/Pagan motifs and it confers originality and positive factors to the CD. A mood of Doom Metal is also obvious - there are many slow, melancholic riffs and melodies. Perhaps that melancholia in some places gives a wrong impression as the music outgrows to boredom and monotony in some places. But generally the album is much stronger than average. The more you listen, the more you need to comprehend and figure it out. And though the release and the creator could improve in terms of ideas, harmonization and performance, but today Zgard has already left a bright footprint on the Metal stage that couldn’t be unnoticed.

Author: Odium

Review
Forbidden Magazine
27.07.2013

Astral Glow is Zgard’s second full length endeavor on the BadMoodMan label (third album altogether though)and comes fairly quickly after last years Reclusion but within only a year the sound is dramatically shifting from a fair Slavic pagan atmospheric black metal attempt to a more blistering and aggressive symphonic black metal sound. To me this is a huge and very apparent jump when listening to both albums side by side and a very welcome one at that, it shows not only progression into a more detailed and cohesive sound but it’s teeming with just enough evil and mysticism to make it a lot more prominent of a release than it’s predecessor. And sure, unlike: Limbonic Art, Summoning, some Abigor, some Dissection, Arturus, and Emperor Zgard is still an incipient project and shows that to a certain degree; but it’s also extremely difficult to meet those expectations then and especially now, and with that said Zgard is a very worthy new act that is rapidly developing from awkward beginnings with promise to something well-worth experiencing if you’re looking for true melodic black metal with symphonic and pagan elements. But even though the project is developing quickly and in the right direction, it’s not without some distinct flaws.

With that said here are several of my main gripes with Astral Glow thus far: the production is a little too clean for me, perhaps if he’s going to go for the raging buzzing riffs and blast beats that are thankfully appearing on this release (were very present but not as good on his debut) then he might want to rough it up a bit so that it doesn’t sound so modern; some of the elements/instruments are overshadowed; and it’s also a bit flat. If Yaromysl (Zgard) is intentionally going for futuristic versus an archaic medieval atmosphere then he’s spot on with the title song “Astral Glow”, but with the creepy cosmic synth making a huge presence on much of the album including this song, it just feels like lackluster so perhaps the mix needs to be muddied up a bit or even have the guitars more prominent, or do something in the mixing/mastering to make it more dramatic. My gripes become even more amplified with otherwise majestic songs like the opener “Balance in the Universe” on which the melody and rhythm are really really good but they are on the same level in the mix which somehow flattens them into s 2-D rather than 3-D as it should be. When the dynamics and intensity are downplayed unintentionally (I hope so for Zgard’s sake) like that it kills the flavor and this is a continual issue throughout the album. To many this might not be a fatal flaw as many black metal bands are great for this, but for what Zgard is trying to do and portray it’s fatal and hearing how much of a great album this is amidst that dilution the result plays more like an atmospheric album with very little atmosphere. I would also have to say that the drums sound a bit mechanical at times, he really needs more bass drum emphasis to balance the riffs and to play around with layering the instruments a bit more and maybe working with different rhythms on snare, toms, cymbals to give it some variety as well.

A glaring example of this is the second song, “When Breaking Down All the Ideals”, which has a lot of great piano and flute sections alongside some notable riff work but the balance of the elements in the mix isn’t right so they wind up sounding chaotic and haphazardly collaged although in actuality they aren’t . There also feels as though there’s no climax within the songs, they sort of go along steadily and then suddenly break into a synth only interlude and start back up again, which hurts the effect that this song could really have and yet again kills the atmosphere. The riffs and rhythm work on Astral Glow are really crunchy and heavy which gives the sound a much needed deadly right hook, but its actual blow ends up being more of a tap than a knock-out because of the unbalanced dynamics and according to the insert he’s actually the one doing all instruments and mastering therefore committing sound suicide.

So although he has a way to go, he’s covered a lot of territory in a year and hopefully as he grows he’ll learn not too iron out so much of the textures and let the albums have the ups and downs needed to make a real impact. The songs are great, the instrumentation is great, the timing and general placement is great, it jsut doesn’t come across as great when all are combined. And in retrospect his actual debut, Spirit of the Carpathian Sunset, released by notable black metal label Darker Than Black had some of the same flaws but with the rawer and archaic production it worked a lot better for him than it does here but they show similarities that he’s obviously going back to, which he should to some extent. I even prefer both albums over Reclusion and hear some the debuts fire burning in Astral Glow, which could have dialed down the production a bit and maintained most of that initial aggression and some of the archaic vibe to create something that had a bit more power to it so hopefully that’s where he’s actually going with the project. Overall Astral Glow comes across as an idea from a mind right on the verge of getting it right but desperately needs to take a moment and step away from it until the flickering light bulb that is Astral Glow finally fully glows and then he releases that album.

Author: Janet Willis