Formed in Kyiv in 2017 by professional, experienced musicians, Arhat gained a lot of attention with their extremely fierce mix of groove and death metal. In 2020 they released their debut full-length album Dead Life and started to work on the new music, which was released as a couple of singles in 2022 and 2023. And now, in 2024 Arhat present their new effort named Secrets Of Ancient Gods.
On the new album the band took the oriental component to the new level, expanding it significantly. “This album is a journey into the world of ancient gods and mysterious rituals, reflecting the depths of wisdom of ancient civilizations. Each composition of the album is imbued with the spirit of mystery and magic, embodied in sophisticated melodies and epic arrangements. In the recording of the album, we utilized Turkish ney, sitar, percussion, and cinematic sound design, blending symphonic orchestrations with ethnic elements.” states the band.
Atmospheric “Intro” slowly immerses the listener to the ancient times, promising a mystical journey but the music reveals fully only on the next track, “Abyss Of Flame”, where oriental instruments blend with brutal riffs and groovy hooks. To tell the truth, I couldn’t imagine how these two components will work together but Arhat crafted something, well, maybe not unique but really impressive. Another things that need to be mentioned are breakdowns: you have them in every song and they made really well. Arhat know where they should reduce their extremely fast pace, giving the listener some rest and making it in the most impressive way – these parts won’t let you sit still, even when you listen to them, causing involuntary headbanging.
The level of brutality increases here in the songs “Symbols” and “The Great Unknown” with guest vocalists Oleksii Syrota from Voracity and Dmytro Moskalenko from Violateress, respectively. They provide a wide range of extreme vocals, from almost guttural to pig squeal and that’s also goes great with the music.
If I remember correctly, for the first time Arhat release two songs in their native language, Ukrainian: “Nasha Khoda Nevpynna” (it was also released as a single) and “Shlyakh Do Prozrinnya.” The first one is dedicated to defenders of Ukraine, who protect the people from the evil – russia. Another one, according to the band, “immerses us in the ancient world, where the intentions of the deities were beyond the reach of human understanding and the mysteries of the universe were endless.”
However, the main problem of Secrets Of Ancient Gods is that you can’t pick one specific song. They all made professionally, written well and played greatly. Each one is balancing between aggressive and catchy groove and fast-paced brutality of death metal. They all have an interesting story behind it but when I listened to a whole album, from start to finish, it all mixed up into a one long 43 minutes track. Ok, maybe guest vocalists added some variety and Ukrainian as my native language also played the role, highlighting the songs I mentioned but I don’t think it will work for those, who don’t speak Ukrainian. But don’t get me wrong, Secrets Of Ancient Gods is really worth attention. It’s interesting, it’s ferocious and very atmospheric, thanks to oriental instruments.
Secrets Of Ancient Gods will be released on May, 31.
If you really would like to support Antichrist, you can just Share our article.
You can also support Antichrist by sending a couple bucks to cover some webhosting expenses. =>> PayPal
