A Ukrainian black metal group that doesn't sound like Nokturnal Mortum. That could be promising, especially since the band was around since 1996 or so, but it's not because they lack any distinctive identity of their own. This is just "one among many" unremarkable Ukrainian bands who continue to soil the waters in that part of the world. You get six songs of straightforward, fairly raw black metal with acceptable production, no keyboards (which is a bit surprising for a Ukrainian band), drum machine (programming courtesy of Nokturnal Mortum's Saturious), and pseudo-poetic, anti-christian lyrics in Russian. The best I can say about these songs is that they are listenable, but listenable in an instantly forgettable, dime a dozen kind of way. The band's earlier, self-titled demo is tacked on the other side of the tape as a bonus, but it doesn't make things any better, more of an opposite. The songs there are pretty much the same as the above six, except for the atrocious production, English titles, and I think I heard a bit of keyboards there somewhere. Not good. Runes Of Dianceht might at best be passable for an unimportant local band. If they want to be anything more than that, they have a lot of work to do.

© 2001 boris