TURIN TURAMBAR "Czas braku wojny"

TURIN TURAMBAR

“Czas braku wojny”

Turin Turambar was a heroic character in Tolkien’s “Silmarillion”, in case you were wondering. This Turin Turambar is a strange Polish metal band created by an equally strange Polish guy named Ataman Tolovy.

This is some pretty whacked out “outsider” metal that sounds like it was recorded in a Polish outhouse somewhere in a forest south of Krakow. I can take a certain amount of low-fi, but this is really pushing things. First track “Miejskie Legendy” is black metal done with guitars so thin and reedy there is literally no heaviness at all. And yes, Virginia, all the lyrics here are in Polish. Despite the somewhat abysmal recording quality (it does improve later on), there are some interesting riffs and ideas here. In fact, some of this is very compelling. But it’s muddled up with such awkward breaks and senseless time changes that it is just about impossible for me to endorse this fully.

I won’t bother trying to recreate all the Polish songtitles here or cover all of T.T.’s quirks, but during these songs you can hear some dark, dragging doom metal, some ferocious low-fi black metal, some solos and riffs almost out of the classic metal textbook and some just utterly weird parts where twanging and tweedy guitar noise predominates. That isn’t even mentioning Tolovy’s odd grumbly vocals. It’s unpredictable and about as commercial as a recording of Australian aborigines playing bagpipes.

Some good parts here, but sometimes too weird is just too weird and that’s where we find Mr. Tolovy and Turin Turambar.

PAGAN RECORDS

TURIN TURAMBAR