De Occulta Philosophia

Blood of Kingu was my first approach to Roman Saenko's music, long before listening to Hate Forest or Drudkh, in fact for a long time I didn't even know the relationship between these bands, and it seems that this brief project of Roman & Co. has passed quite unnoticed and even more since its dissolution. Many understand Blood of Kingu more as a failed rebranding of Hate Forest that tried to address musical and aesthetic interests that never quite fit, if one reviews the band's brief discography one can notice that each album aims towards a different direction. De Occulta Philosophia was the first work of this band, and it has the particularity of being the only album that has Roman Saenko playing all the instruments (except drums) and the truth is that the result left me a bit cold.

The album starts off with a very interesting intro of what seems to be a Sumerian influenced music style, just with that intro and the names of the songs we can point to an album that is going to contain a fusion between Sumerian folkloric elements and black metal. Here comes the first disappointment, the brief glimpses we get of that folkloric music are in the brief instrumental interludes that contribute nothing except to fill up between songs on an album that in itself only lasts 28 minutes. The closest we're going to get to any similar element in the music itself is the vocal elements, which have been described as a sort of shamanic/druidic chanting, but these to my mind add more of a strong psychedelic and abstract presence to the album than the fusion I'd like to get.

Actually, the album could be considered instrumental to a certain extent, it is true that there are vocal choirs but their contributions are sporadic and they are used as an element more to add to the ambience than with the intention of having a light of their own. The main objective of the album seems to be a repetitive and dense exercise but at the same time very short, the songs don't have more than two riffs that mark the rhythm of the other instruments for three or four minutes, making the compositions very thick and seem to work more as an atmospheric performance than anything else. The whole album follows the same structure and kind of unchanging sound that is only interrupted by those brief interludes already mentioned, I can't tell if the original intention of the album was for it to be the way it is or if Roman Saenko took music left over from Hate Forest sessions and threw it all in and rushed it in to get something done, because the end result is something half-hearted that hasn't contributed much, it's not bad, it's not boring (it doesn't have time to be) but it's not an album I'm going to remember. In fact the most likely thing I will remember is the terrible snare sound in some songs like "Stronghold of Megaliths, Thorns and Human Bones" or "Chambers of Inpu-Sub" where the whole mood is ruined by that terrible discordant sound.

I don't think that the intentions of the ukrainian musician were to go in this direction, because the releases after this one would show a facet that would keep very few things related to this album which in the end remains as a musical curiosity more than anything else.

Blood of Kingu – essentially a continuation of Ukrainian mainstays Hate Forest – released their first LP ‘De Occulta Philosophia’ back in 2007. It follows in the same footsteps as Hate Forest and will hold no surprises for anyone familiar with Roman Saenko’s style. Repetitive, raw, minimal, dissonant, grey music for an extremely rainy day. Drums stick with a synthetic barrage of repetition, anchoring the music in predictability. Guitars wash over the whole mix with layered, tremolo picked riffs that trade in dissonance and simple melodic progressions in equal measure. Although the music is defined by these harsh, grating guitars, ‘De Occulta Philosophia’ weaves some more conventional melody into proceedings that sound like rejects from whatever Drudkh album Saenko was working on at the time. Although modest in their application, these melodic inflections provide a welcome break to this otherwise one-dimensional music.

The Hate Forest formula was always frustrating; music that never developed much beyond a singular, static idea. ‘De Occulta Philosophia’, although suffering from the same condition of stasis, does attempt to mix up the overall mood. The most obvious example being the vocals, which are now largely absent. Hate Forest capitalised on creating one particularly grim style, this was aided by guttural death metal vocals. Here, the overarching vocal delivery is a form of throat singing that repeatedly crops up towards the end of each track, as a way to round things off with an additional layer of drama and idiosyncratic delivery for ears accustomed to Western vocal techniques.

Beyond that, the word is frustration, as it is with everything Saenko turns his hand to (except Drudkh who lack even the potential required to frustrate). The problem – as alluded to above – is simply the fact that Blood of Kingu are so one dimensional. The mood is immediately striking, one is immersed in this all-encompassing atmosphere of cold dissonance that could make even the brightest day feel cloudy. But this one, singular idea is never developed beyond this first step. It’s the equivalent of offering the premise of a novel without fleshing out anything beyond. I *get* what Saenko is doing, but by track three it becomes tiresome, confused as to where to take itself, a frozen moment in time without anything to offer the future.

Blood of Kingu do attempt to create a uniquely harsh environment through their music (and they partially succeed). The inherent mechanical qualities to the drums, the tinny sheen to the production, the suppression of conventional melody in favour of dissonance and minimalism. But this does not prevent us from viewing their work as a static object. Half an idea, yet to be fleshed out.

Originally published at Hate Meditations

This is a revision of an old review written circa 2009.

A sideproject of Roman Saenko, known for piloting Drudkh and a few other bands, Blood Of Kingu is an intense black metal band with strong emphasis on atmosphere, with many of the riffs recalling Hate Forest, or greatly intensified Drudkh material. There are also elements seemingly drawn from some other Ukrainian black metal projects, such as Astrofaes, especially in the darker and more atonal riffs. Considering that it's a project of the Drudkh mainman, Blood of Kingu has surprising black metal authority. It's driven by speed and blasting intensity, and much more a spiritual successor of Hate Forest than Drudkh ever was. The album is consistently relentless, and equally invaried in its riffing style and atmosphere. There's little variety in tempo, and songs are largely distinguishable by memorable riffs alone. Most of them could be concatenated into one large entity without sacrificing the flow – only the tribal drumming interludes bring variety to the experience. Because of this lack of variety, ”De Occulta Philosophia” can be hard to swallow as a whole despite its compact running time.

”De Occulta Philosophia” has a prominent ancient Mesopotamian theme. It's not just the interludes and the intro of the album – the Middle-Eastern sound can be heard in many of the guitar riffs as well, much like in Astrofaes' music. Instead of screams or other vocals styles traditionally heard in the genre, the vocals are low-pitched chants of indecipherable words, sounding like a group of monks reciting ancient prayers for some ancient gods of long forgotten cultures. The vocals are very monotonous and mostly a background element. They create an ominous and dark aura to the music, cumulating to the already very strong atmospheric impact of the music.

In spite of effects, the largest factor in creating the unique atmosphere of ”De Occulta Philosophia” is the riffing. It can be divided into two main categores for the most part. There are simple, minimalistic riffs that are often dissonant, simplistic and very dark in sound, for example the dark trill riff often heard in Hate Forest's music. The highlight of riffing, though, is the other style: the one Roman Saenko is best known for. Sinister, intense and yet melancholic riffs, created by chaining inventive tremolo-picked chords and intervals, combining harmony and dissonance for a great effect, create the breathtaking atmosphere and emotional expression of this album. The combination of these different guitar playing styles gives interesting contrast to the music, and the two styles are compatible enough to be in excellent balance and concordance despite the otherwise unvaried and uncompromising style of the album.

Similarly inventive is the style of drumming on ”De Occulta Philosophia”. There are short drum fills placed quite frequently, which is a great addition, since the blastbeats are relentless. The nature of the drumming and the rhythmic aspects of the guitar riffs make the album flow extremely well, only interrupted by the short interludes. However, due to the lack of variety in the music, the album seems like a rather lengthy and very slowly progressing slab of black metal, in spite of being only 28 minutes in length. Its sheer intensity is unexpected given its authors' résumé – ”De Occulta Philosophia” is definitely not a half-hearted sideproject, and it's certainly not intended for fans of Drudkh only.

So I guess this is where Hate Forest went after Hate Forest was over. Seems like kind of a regression, doesn't it? I mean, all your heady nationalist concepts and Ukrainian folk anthems then leads to... Babylonian mythology and 10th grade occultism. More amusing is the fact that the music doesn't really seem to have changed in the intervening period: for all the hemming and hawing about Tiamat and Abzu it basically just sounds like a boring Lutomysl CD. The ancient ones HAVE NOT LOOKED ON YOU WITH FAVOR.

Hate Forest was always better in concept than execution to me. I mean, I like my droning, folky Slavic black metal. I own like sixty Lucifugum CDs- I'm partial to the style. Hate Forest, though, never really meshed with the rest of the Slavic scene- their melodies seemed much more restrictive and less heartfelt and the delivery reminded me more of the modern Norwegian scene than the particularly unique feel of the Ukrainian scene they came from. I guess this is resolved on 'De Occulta Philosophia', at least in that these guys definitely sound Ukrainian now, from the big droning Branikald guitar and synth walls to the slightly thrashier Dub Buk Passages and (of course) all the nods to Hate Forest, Astrofaes, and other associated projects.

That's all well and good but the result is not. Mostly I just find this boring- I'm pretty sure I've heard all the riffs on this album before in various Hate Forest, Lucifugum, and Dub Buk songs, but executed with a lot more passion on those releases than this one. Well, maybe not the Hate Forest ones. Seriously though, there's almost nothing to distinguish this from Hate Forest apart from some ill-advised ritualistic vocals and a really, really annoying snare drum sound. There's not really any sense of dynamics; just a lot of blasting for the most part, and none of the riffs express any particular creativity or even novelty. It's literally just a minor rebranding of Hate Forest- it shouldn't even be a new project. Just throw some Ukrainian traditionals on as bonus tracks and call it a fucking day, guys.

Like most albums, this is relatively listenable and the occasional goofy segues into something 'atmospheric', like the incredibly silly hand drum interlude 'Slaughter Of Shudras' are hilarious as well as ineffective. Apart from a vaguely tolerable black metal album with some occasional humor to it, though, what's there to say about this? Apart from that the band really needs to fucking consider their font choices on album covers. Really, guys? How gauche.

From the ashes of the defunct Hate Forest rose a phoenix in 2005 by the name of Blood of Kingu. They say fortune favours the brave but I don’t always agree when that expression is applied to black metal music. Occasionally, depending on the right developer behind the music, sticking to a similar path can often pay dividends, too. Take the new Burzum record for example. ‘Belus’, although recorded many years after Varg’s last black metal piece, sticks to similar themes projected on his earlier works, particularly that of ‘Filosofem’. Admittedly, there are some alterations, but a fair chunk of the material can be related to that of his older works, including certain ones not mentioned previously. Whilst Varg didn’t totally neglect the expression “fortune favours the brave”, he definitely kept to sound which respects olden day traditions, morals and values. Whilst the black metal scene is bolstered by its fair share of modern day innovators, a large portion of its audience still craves traditional sounding bands who stick closely to their roots.

This is where Blood of Kingu comes into the equation. I’m no expert on Hate Forest, the band which this act evolved from, but Blood of Kingu isn’t too different from them and some of their sister bands, including the likes of the illustrious and largely adored Drudkh, one of Ukraine’s greatest exports. Although it is more likely that a reviewer will reference Hate Forest’s demise as a key inspiration behind Blood of Kingu’s debut full-length, entitled ‘De Occulta Philosophia’, I find the earliest Drudkh records a stronger point of reference, though Blood of Kingu, as with Varg’s recent efforts on ‘Belus’, don’t allow themselves to be viewed as a simplistic carbon copy whereby the material present here is merely recycled from the cuts that didn’t make it on the numerous Drudkh, or even Hate Forest records. Even taking into account the unusual lyrical themes adopted by the band, or the enigmatic vocal style, one can easily conclude from an assessment that Blood of Kingu do differ somewhat, despite the fact that the backbone of this record is largely similar to that of the sister bands combined.

Taking into account Hate Forest’s wintry imagery of glaciers, icicles, blizzards and other such adverse conditions and connotations of the season of winter, mixed in with their sheer aggressive repetitiveness and blend it with Drudkh’s sense of overwhelming melancholy and we’re close to what Blood of Kingu offer, as shown perfectly on the majestic ‘Stronghold of Megaliths, Thorns and Human Bones’. However, given the wall-of-sound approach that the guitars appear to adopt, ‘De Occulta Philosophia’ tries to add some flavour to a dish that tastes like something I’ve had and enjoyed before. Although I wouldn’t call the approach a fully blown wall-of-sound depiction, akin to something like Darkspace, I would say that the atmospherics benefit from the extra added dynamics of the guitars biting distortion, though the bass does tend to suffer at the heart of this portrayal as it is only just distinguishable amidst the chaotic, furious stylistic approach of Blood of Kingu, as shown well on songs like ‘Lair of Night Abzu’ whereby the bass is just about audible enough to be taken into consideration.

However, with the vast majority of black metal bands, especially those who adopt such heavy distortion, the bass isn’t meant to be a central figure within the songs and the song writing doesn’t revolve entirely around the bass as if it’s the most pivotal element of the depiction. With my affection for bass, I do consider its sheer lack of involvement a downside, though there is more than enough to make up for this disheartening element of the record, namely found in the guitars and vocals which choose a less than predictable, or traditional way of showcasing themselves. They’re difficult to describe as they’re unique to the band and unlike most other vocals on black metal records. They’re not rasped, nor are they shrieked. They don’t adopt death metal guttural growls and they don’t entertain the idea of proposing melancholic doom like growls either. Instead, what we have here, is a rather unusual piece of juxtaposition in the texture of the vocals. They’re both soft and heavy simultaneously which perfectly combines with the textures of the instrumentation, particularly the guitars. Although not exactly like them, Roman’s vocals remind me of Wrest’s during the self-titled Lurker of Chalice effort.

If I were going to assess what kind of record this would be based on the filler tracks alone, I’d be left amazed and astonished at the final outcome as the short instrumental fillers do very little to describe the flow of the record. Having said this, they do give the lyrics, which haven’t been supplied by the band, more value because the mythological feel of the instrumental songs brings the themes to life while the rest of the record focuses on the ancient, archaic feel through repetition. Whilst the instruments supply the record with an eclectic tribal sound, particularly that of ‘Slaughter of Shudras’ with its clean drumming, the remainder of the record is anything but clean. However, areas like the drumming force their way into the limelight, despite being overly repetitive and cyclical for most of the records short duration, during songs like ‘Chambers of Inpu-sub’ and, especially, towards the end of the wonderfully majestic ‘Stronghold of Megaliths, Thorns and Human Bones’, when they begin to sound cleaner in comparison to the guitars and take of a more infection style, rather than putting an emphasis on repetition through blast beats. With its electric atmosphere, ‘De Occulta Philosophia’ has begun the life of Blood of Kingu well.

When Hate Forest disbanded in 2005, Blood of Kingu was the project that rose from the ashes. After a wait of some years the debut album was finally unveiled at the end of 2007. Maybe because of the non-progressive nature of the previous band, most people were expecting little more than a continuation of the Hate Forest aesthetic. And for the most part, they were right.

Blood of Kingu is immediately identifiable as Ukranian extreme black metal - fitting in alongside Astrofaes, Hate Forest, Drudkh et al; the music is steady yet fast-paced with limited use of vocals and big on riff repetition. Similarly, the arrangements are reliant on sequencing programs: all of the tracks are seemingly constructed from individual loops and song "segments" which are re-arranged and clipped together to form complete tracks. This was the defining sound for Hate Forest a decade ago, and only helped to add to the exaggerated inhuman nihilism that was the underlying theme of the band.

But Blood of Kingu pretends to be something new and different, whilst barely changing tact at all. The production is a little closer, perhaps - the band members no longer sound like they are spaced a mile apart on an icy glacier - but the songs themselves are very much from the same mould. The overdriven guitars work methodically through a shopping list of riffs, that do little but pave the way for the next one to follow. The cyclical drum patterns keep the tracks interesting and manage to shift attention at choice moments, helping to convey an illusion of added impetus when in fact few tracks change tempo at all.

There are few innovations here to mark "De Occulta..." out as anything other than a later Hate Forest album - other than the concept and the vocal delivery. Actually, that's not strictly true. There are a couple of drum interludes where the band members slap out tribal rhythms on djembes and bongos. But these are the musical low-points of the album. You have to wonder if all this is reason enough to decommission an existing band and then reform it again under a new logo.

In balance, the vocals do add an atmospheric element to the sound which wasn't there before, though they are very very low in the mix. Sounding like a small chamber choir of Franciscan monks, the trio of hushed, dour voices brings a cryptic, mystical element to the sound which encapsulates the esoteric themes well enough.

"De Occulta Philosophia" does not piss over the legacy of Hate Forest by taking musical risks, that's for sure. Blood of Kingu was justified as a step forward, but there is very little development to show for on this album. For those people who hoped to hear an evolved version of Hate Forest's style, "De Occulta..." will probably be a deflating experience.


(written for Blast!zine issue one: http://www.myspace.com/blastzine)

Stunningly beautiful and majestically brutal sums up these songs quite well. I've not really been listening to much metal lately, my activity in the rave scene hasn't really given me much time to listen to much music that isn't breakcore or acid techno, but on the few occasions I still get to listen to metal, this tends to be the first choice and good God, what an incredible choice this is.


Imagine a slightly more lo-fi Drudkh with hummed/chanted vocals that drone over relentless blastbeats and incredible melodic guitar playing. All songs are basically working with that formula, which is the most apparent in the second song (third track) called 'Mummu Tiamat'. The song starts off with a riff that is suspiciously similar to one of Drudkh's songs on 'The Swan Road' called 'Eternal Sun' but works just as well as it does in that song in a completely different context.


That doesn't mean that Blood of Kingu's a Drudkh or, while we're at it, a Hate Forest clone. While on paper, Blood of Kingu is similar to these bands, the execution and overall atmosphere is rather different. Whereas Hate Forest is total brutality and Drudkh's about the melancholy and gorgeous atmospheres, this band combines these elements and adds a certain amount of Weakling like epicness in there (in style, none of these songs clock over 5 and a half minutes in length -- the riffs are simply huge) and of course, some occasional Middle Eastern instrumentation and tablas.


The vocals are noteworthy as well. As mentioned before, they're chanted drones. No tortured screams, intense mid heavy growls or even majestic clean singing, this is all druid like chanting unlike anything I've heard before in black metal.


Nearly 30 minutes in length, you can't help but want more but the album starts, flows and ends perfectly. This is a worthy release, up there with the other greats of the Ukrainian black metal scene and I would say that it's even better than anything Hate Forest (this band's predescessor) has released, which are big words coming from a big Hate Forest fan such as myself.

In 2005 Hate Forest, the legendary Ukrainian nationalist black metal band, disbanded and from its ashes was born Blood of Kingu. Founded by Drudkh and Hate Forest’s mastermind Roman Saenko, Blood of Kingu is still black metal, but in a way that I’ve personally never heard of before. Instead of normal epic black metal with nationalist tendencies as is the case with Hate Forest, Blood of Kingu has a very druidic feel to it…a kind of ancient, stone-age atmosphere of proto-European culture.

De Occulta Philosophia is very short, clocking at just a little over 28 minutes, and contains 9 tracks of black metal which is instrumentally quite similar to two albums that came out at about the same time, namely Astrofaes’ Idea.Form.Essence and, to a lesser extent, Drudkh’s Estrangement. The element which really makes these three albums sound alike is the drumming. Most of the time the albums is based on standard fast-paced repetitive drumming, as with a lot of black metal, but sometimes, the drumming becomes based solely on the heavy use of cymbals. At first I considered this technique somewhat excessive and I disliked it but after a few listens it quickly marks the songs in which it’s present as positive highlights. There are two tracks in which this technique of basing the drumming on cymbals is used: “Stronghold of Megaliths, Thorns and Human Bones” and the closer, “Chambers of Inpu-sub”.

What makes this Blood of Kingu really stand out however is the vocal style used on this album. This isn’t any kind of rasp or shriek as used in virtually all black metal but instead consists of droning, almost moaning vocals which are very slowly executed. The vocals are very evocative of the druidic, shamanistic style of the album overall. Riff-wise the album is quite repetitive, kind of like Drudkh although with much shorter tracks.

Lyrically De Occulta Philosophia deals with Egyptian and Sumerian mythology instead of Roman Saenko’s usual line of Ukrainian nationalism. I’m judging this by the song titles and the content of the booklet, as there are no printed lyrics whatsoever, although judging from the vocals the lyrics can’t be very extensive… The booklet is filled with nothing but Egyptian figures, mostly gods such as Horus and Anubis as well as scenes of battles and pharaohs.

Overall this album represents a very good effort by Roman Saenko, although I still prefer Hate Forest by a small margin. Hopefully the band will release a few more albums in the coming years which will all be as good as or better than De Occulta Philosophia. This is, however, a very good album, definitely worth getting by anyone who likes black metal with an original feel to it and some unorthodox elements.