Thrash til' Deth wrote:
Okay, metalheads. Thanks to your incessant lauding of this band I decided to check them out. All I can say is thank you, and where the hell have I been? So far, I've loved what I've heard from Blood in the Wells and Microcosmos but, is this the best place to start?
Great, Microcosmos is my favorite later album from them, and Blood is a popular mid period pick. The album most people consider their best is their second, Autumn Aurora, here is a particularly memorable track
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECgqbaSLlmU. I'm a bit more partial to their first album though, Forgotten Legends, but either is a great introduction to the classic Drudkh sound. The album in between these first two and Blood in their Wells is 'The Swan Road', which introduced a bit of change to their style, as they became a little more musically complicated and less reliant on those, minor key hypnotic riffs, I think the Swan Road is excellent and quite underrated due to its awful production.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0ydmdhNaKw Best track on the album is here, note the blistering, melodic lead towards the end.
After Blood in Their Wells, but before Microcosmos, came the acoustic album (Songs of Grief) and Estrangement, decent, musically accomplished recordings that I didn't find too memorable. After Microcosmos came Handful of Stars, Drudkh's clearest turn towards accessibility and a more popularized, 'progressive sound'. Their most divisive album, I go back and forth on whether it works. Facing the backlash from that album came the most recent full-length, Eternal Turn of the Wheel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmJ0xg-cqPs, which is very competent, a turn away from accessibility, but excepting the awesome track, 'When Gods Leave Their Emerald Halls', not very memorable in comparison to their earlier albums or Microcosmos.
