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SunChariot > Harvest > Reviews
SunChariot - Harvest

Truly Innovative and Different - 92%

EdwardtheBlack, June 5th, 2004

Sunchariot- Russia's finest black metal band. Quite possibly the best Slavic metal band out there. What sets Sunchariot apart from their Slavic peers in their attention to detail and melody. On this albumn, it seems as if they took less of an Emperor-style approach to the music(a highly melodic riff hidden (mixed with lower decibels, so maybe just aurally concealed) under the blast of the bass and rhythm guitar) than what was shown on their first full-length. The casting away from their influences shows me as a listener that Sunchariot now truly has their own sound.

Their eclectic mix of folk and black metal may not sound very original, but folk is probably the least-straightforward genre other than jazz. That being said, the albumn won't sound like a Vintersorg piece because Vintersorg clearly uses Norweigian folk as their influence. At first I thought the lute/ocarina player would just weigh down the instrumentation, but it actually gives you the breezy, careless (or even melodramatic) feeling that a long walk in the forest should give you. Also separating them for their nature-kin peers is the fact that they don't speak of nature in a superficial tone; they speak of what lies within, and how it should be remembered, not the stereotypical and superficial "SODOMY OF GOATS IN THE FOREST/ DEICIDE IS EVIL, SAVE OUR TREES" rites spoken by almost every other band.

Sunchariot is definitely heading in the right direction with their latest (new albumn this year? Please?), and this albumn is probably the most enjoyable diversion/deviation on the black metal genre I have had in a long time.