Review: DIGIR GIDIM “I Thought There Was the Sun Awaiting My Awakening”

DIGIR GIDIM “I Thought There Was the Sun Awaiting My Awakening”
ATMF

What a long title, ah? A Ddet (it’s still not a band in my opinion if one person plays all instruments and second only sings) which released this full-length is together since 2014. I wrote especially ‘is together’ because as on three years of existence creating four songs is rather miserable feat. But it’s much more important quality than number.

As I said “I Thought There Was a Sun Awaiting My Awakening” is a debut album of Utanapištim Ziusudra (everything) and Lalartu (voc). It contains only four, but long songs – the shortest one takes almost eleven minutes. Guys describe themselves as a “Black Metal band based on the Ancient Mesopotamic Beliefs with Avantgarde (I know that it’s written wrongly from grammatical point of view)) feelings and innovative philosophic musical solutions”. Well, wouldn’t dispute about beliefs, its dogmas and so on of Mesopotamia which existed only in ancient times, so using adjective “ancient” in this case is just logic error – at least in this meaning. Truth is that Mesopotamia means land which is located between rivers is geographical region. By the way, I wonder whole the time what the hell avant-garde feelings are about? Well, nevermind! I’ll have to live with this unresolved and probably even insolvable mystery.

So let’s talk about music. I have no idea if they mean Sumerian or Semite religions here. I know that music was strongly connected with religion in Mesopotamia, but since it was matter of mathematic and not philosophy which belongs to humanities. Anyway, unfortunately I can’t find in what I hear here anything innovative. That’s just Black Metal. Yes, it’s not played in some very typical way –I agree with that. But it’s also nothing what I never heard before. Riffs are a little more variable than in the most of Black Metal’s acts still aren’t something innovative or edge-cutting. They’re of course heavy ones and even some “calmer” ones are like that. But in the same time it’s surely played thoughtfully, … hm… roundly and maybe even surrealistic in some way. I’d don’t use word ‘majestic’ to describe them, but guitar’s work gives to this music right climate for sure. Utanapištim drums even more variously than play guitar, I think. There’re quite many changes of tempo, cymbals or passages. On the end of this review I’ll write some words about vocal – as usually, actually.  Lalartu use mostly Black Metal squawk. But there’re also long fragments when we can hear clean vocal or some recitations. In a nutshell he does it as variously as music is, maybe even in a little higher level.

This band is surely for fans of Black Metal, first of all. But only for these of them who want to hear something different. As I said it’s anything innovative and I heard bands playing in similar way, but there weren’t so many of them – at least much less than these which played in Norwegian style. Of course it doesn’t mean that we have to do here with something boring or stuff like that,no! I just can’t agree with description that it’s avant-garde and even more innovative. But this is interesting music on quite high technical level for sure. That’s why I can recommend it also to people who maybe aren’t true-blue fans of Black Metal, but like to listen sometimes to it – especially that as I said before DIĜIR GIDIM plays it a little differently than most of bands.