Through Funeral Shadows

When I met Adragard from Italy for the first time, with their second album, I saw some potential in them. In the 7^th of November of 2019, the quartet return with their third full length album released again by Perkun Records in limited to 500 copies cd format. The album is called “Through Funeral Shadows” and it contains ten tracks, nine new compositions and one cover of Mayhem’s Freezing Moon, of overall duration of about forty-eight minutes. So, what happened one and a half year after I met them? Have they managed to evolve and get their music further? I will answer yes and no, as some aspects of the new album are better but some other, I think they are worse.

The first thing that someone will notice is how harsh and raw the music has become. Of course, that old school, harsh style was present in their previous album too, but I think that here, they have made their style way harsher and rawer. The music presented is an homage to the old school Black Metal, influenced by the Scandinavian scene obviously, but I also found a lot of references to Mutiilation. It is cold, hateful and sometimes violent, while there are also moments when they become epic or chaotic or punkier, showing a different side of the band. The melancholic, depressive atmosphere which existed in the previous album is almost gone, apart from some parts which put out a more melancholic, nostalgic feeling. The general atmosphere is dark, raw and primitive while the feelings, most of the time, are hateful and violent, although there are a lot of epic ones. The tracks last from four to six minutes and their structure is basic, without any complex parts or with a lot of changes, it follows a simple but satisfying pattern.

The instruments are played in a professional level but with an amateur feeling, reminding performances of the early ‘90ies. The guitar, which is the leading instrument, has a very raw, noisy and distorted sound, putting out an old school and very hateful feeling, while their performance is flawless. The bass is audible and it has simple lines, mainly supporting the drums. The drums, both into the rhythmic, medium tempo parts and into the fast ones, are stable and passionate. The vocals are primitive, harsh and distorted Black Metal vocals, very passionate and hateful but too distorted and noisy, they fit to the style of the compositions but sometimes they are quite annoying. The only thing that, in my opinion, is worse than their previous album is the production. They have tried to recreate that primitive atmosphere and sound of the early ‘90ies productions but the result is too primitive and raw while in some parts the sound becomes flat. Generally, the production is amateur and diminishes the quality of the album. The mixture is basic but satisfying. The lyrics are written in English and they are contained into the four-page booklet. They speak about rituals, Satanism, destruction of humanity.

To sum up, I think that the third album of Adragard, is a step forward, regarding their style and their compositions as now they create songs with a clearer orientation and generally more satisfying one. On the other hand, the problems with the production may bother some listeners. I liked the album and the songs that I distinguished are the more epic Eucharistic Alkaloid Visions, the slow, more atmospheric Unholy Gospel and the hateful Toxic Demented Funeral (despite the sound problem). The cover of Freezing Moon that you will find as the last track, is a homage to the period of Black Metal that influenced the band the most and a very nice addition to the complete old school experience. I suggest to every fan of grim, raw and old school Black Metal to listen to this album.