Vrtra - My Bones Hold a Stillness

VRTRA - My Bones Hold a Stillness (DAWNBREED Records LP 2017)

Completely unreadable, but quite good looking, logo and very austere design of the record caught my attention right away. And so did the music I have to say, because from the first spin I thought that "My Bones Hold a Stillness" is something worthier than your typical and average extreme metal release. And even though stylistically it's far from traditionally sounding stuff (which I usually prefer to listen to), Vrtra impressed me and didn't let change the record for different one for quite a while. Wow, what a great songwriting and performance from this unknown, obscure band. What a killer effort!  

In case of "My Bones Hold a Stillness" it's a hard task to really describe the music, as Vrtra definitely combine few styles of extreme music. But if I was going to describe "My Bones Hold a Stillness" in just few words, then I would say that it's a blackened, most obscure form of death metal, strongly infected by doomy, sludgy heaviness to capture the darkest and most frightening atmosphere. Yes, the aura that this music evokes is almost evil and malicious, it's going to possess you. I love how Vrtra uses dissonant and heavy riffs and blend them with more ferocious death / black metal parts, how they arrange their songs into lengthy compositions. Listening to them is like a journey through someone's nightmarish visions, which hypnotize the listener from the very first till very last second. You will find out that it's not easy to put this record back and do something else or to listen to something else. It draws attention and infects you with black mould. This sound is dense and bleak, with a lot of noise and good balance between slow, doomy heaviness and ferocious black metal blasts. Even the vocals merge screams, howls, growls and clean parts, adjusting them to the atmosphere of riffage. The twelve minutes long monolith from side B which is also the title track for this album is the most fantastic and thrilling part of "My Bones Hold a Stillness", I truly love what's going on in this song, with its most doomy and sepulchral riffage and killer vocals.  

It all is very intense, savage, very intriguing also, so personally I am surprised positively and liked this album a lot. I am not sure who's behind this band, because yet again we have some anonymous persons in the line up. I don't even know if there's going to be CD version. For the moment you can get Dawnbreed Records' vinyl comes with metallic gold ink, limited to 200 copies and the US press is from Sentient Ruin Laboratories with metallic silver ink, limited to another 200 copies. There were some tapes available as well. 

Standout track: "My Bones Hold a Stillness" 

Final rate: 80/100