ALBUM REVIEW: DEVA OBIDA Deliver Murmansk Metal With “Rudiment”
DEVA OBIDA is a Metal band from the North-West of Russia, which formed in 1998 and has gone through a lot of stylistic and structural changes. Starting from the orthodox, but at the same time spiced with melodism and their own feature, the Doom / Death Metal band passed through Melodic Power, trends of 2000s and rethinking of their creativity to an eclectic, melodic heavy sounding, accumulating experience and their own stylistic background.
Mature, deep and meaningful Metal music with Russian lyrics inspired by the North, tradition, the outer and inner world. Music that has no strict genre boundaries, with an ethnic core that has passed through all the creativity of the band in its new heyday, which was successfully revealed in their new full-length album “Rudiment” out on Polygon Records
Kicking off the album is “Pleyma” which starts with such a beautiful uptempo piece that immediately grabs you with an undeniable world metal music vibe before landed a heavy blow of fantastic Russian metal. A great track.
“Pulse“ has a meandering flow that is both light and dark in equal measure with a really memorable style. The rhythm just carries you along and is perfectly complimented with the rolling Russian vocals.
“Litsa” is a slow rolling thunder of soviet power that piles over you and pins you to the floor with the weight of compulsion to listen to it. What a track.
“Zov“ is another powerful pounding piece of swaying metal that is impossible to dismiss. The powerful industrial sound and vocals are mesmerising.
“Impulse“ thunders in combining pure metal with traditional instruments that entwine to create an amazing track. This instrumental is both surprising and very welcome.
“Relict“ rolls in before tearing you a new one with incredible aggressive vocals and an almost monk like background guttural throat growling before it steps up the pace. You will be headbanging your head off by the end of the song.
“Zmey“ continues the already excellent album turning in another song utterly infused with a pure industrial Russian feel. No compromise with their homeland musical influence and yet creates an international appeal. This is one that you really want to see live.
“Pereval“ has a Western feel, as if Morricone himself had decided to make his next Spaghetti Western sound like it was in the uninhabited Urals and he was listening to too much Rammstein at the time.
The last one in line is “Deva Zarya” and perfectly rounds of the album. It is another instrumental that is just beautiful. It could just be dropped perfectly into the Witcher.
Rudiment is a true gem of an album, perfectly blending folkish, industrial and hard and heavy metal in a fantastically professionally produced way. You will put this album on repeat.
DEVA OBIDA is an outstanding representative of the Murmansk Metal scene having released several large-scale music videos, took part in international music festivals in Russia and abroad, sharing the stage with rather big number of artists from the first line of Metal, such as Amorphis, Eluveitie, Sybreed, Illdisposed, Suidakra, Gods Tower, etc.
