Blood of Kingu — Dark Star on the Right Horn of the Crescent Moon

I guess you could call Blood of Kingu a supergroup of sorts. Except instead of the members coming from various other bands they basically all come from Drudkh. We have Roman Saenko pulling guitar and vocal duties, Krechet on bass, Thurios on guitar, and Vlad playing keys. The only member of Blood of Kingu to come from outside of Drudkh is drummer Yuriy. Dark Star on the Right Horn of the Crescent Moon is the band’s third opus, released just a couple weeks ago.

With 80% of the band’s composition Drudkh members, you’d expect there to be plenty of similarities to their main band. And indeed there are moments on the album where I thought, “Y’know, this kind of sounds like Drudkh,” as the occasional grand sweeping movement swells up from the darkness like the crest of the sun as it creeps up from behind the desert. Notice here how I said desert and not forest. Unlike Drudkh, the band’s inspiration comes from Sumerian mythology instead of Ukrainian romantics and it manifests itself in the band’s middle-eastern tinged riffs. Perhaps it’s just because of how uncommon it is for bands to use middle-eastern influences instead of European, but there are occasional moments that remind me of Nile or Melechesh when Blood of Kingu cares to go for a more melody focused rout. But for the most part, the focus is on atmospherics. Spacey, meandering riffs that bring to mind the smoke-filled temples of ancient Egypt.

That’s about all Dark Star on the Right Horn of the Crescent Moon has going for it: a passable atmosphere. But there are way too many things holding the album back. If the band had gone with standard European flavored riffs the album would have been unbearably monotonous. It’s not even a long album (just 40 minutes), but there’s not enough variation to keep a listener interested. It just winds along without any real direction while Yuriy hammers out incessant blast beats. I like blast beats as much as the next guy, but that’s all that happens here. I’m sure the man is a more capable drummer than this, but it doesn’t show at all. The middle-eastern garnish here doesn’t distract from the fact that there’s very little substance here. Just stock black metal riffs that can be found anywhere from numerous bands. It’s kind of funny how supergroups of unique bands frequently end up being generic as all hell. The middle-eastern chanting and such are a decent attempt to stave of mediocrity, but doesn’t quite make it.

This was my first time listening to a Blood of Kingu album and it doesn’t exactly inspire me to seek out the rest of the band’s work. The middle-eastern influences do make for an occasional interesting moment here and there, and there are instances of good riffs, but wading through the rest of the material is too much work for a listen to be rewarding.