A few soft piano keys bring the thunderous Remaining Light to an end.
Vocally, Nick Kholodov covers a lot of ground – his vitriolic rasps sometimes making way for a more death metal leaning bellow and, on occasion, an almost spoken-word growl. Tremolo riffs and tense drum patterns filled with a sense of urgency drive forward as Remaining Light transitions into its main body – melodic black metal rules here, with an atmospheric touch and a flair for the dramatic. Karst Relict comes as MALIST‘s third record in as many years, and further proof of the strength of Russian black metal.Ī sombre melody and bluesy leads herald the beginning of Karst Relict before Remaining Light explodes into life. The Russian black metal scene in particular is offering up wonders – and leading the vanguard in the underground is MALIST, a one-man atmospheric black metal outfit from Moscow. It’s taken a bit longer for the Russian scene to get a foothold of international recognition, but times are changing. Once rock and metal moved out with the realms of criminality and into the cultural underground, post-Communist states like Poland and the Czech Republic became breeding grounds of brutality – Poland, in particular, has a long history of producing some of the top tier extreme metal, especially in recent years. Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, Eastern Europe has been a hotbed of heavy music.