Published: May 5, 2014

It's been over three years since I made ​​the acquaintance of Rodion Mikhailov (then known as IO) and its solitary project Windbruch thanks to "Collision Of The Worlds" , a considerable amount of time that had led me to forget the existence of this Russian group. Yet it took only a couple of tracks from the new album "No Stars, Only Full Dark" to bring back vivid memories and positive sign that the music had left me something.

These new songs, recorded between 2009 and 2012, continuing the path set in the onset. Melancholy and intimate approach pervade the notes and dominate the composition, which often neglects the song form to dilate often over ten minutes and suit the mood of the author, passing seamlessly from aggressive tones (never exasperated) to sweet melodies from ambient moods dreamy landscapes and synthetic sounds "space" or cold (in the style of ColdWorld); all through numerous deadlifts and starts. Even in "A City On Fire" there is no fear of touching the vein doom-death, with vocals that is even deeper than usual, becoming a real growl; while in "Neswa-Pawuk" the voice becomes clean and ethereal. The same black metal for its part here is not the "end", but simply a means (among many others) used to launch a warning (contained in the back of the booklet), with the aid of large doses of post-rock: if continue to leverage our wildly Planet, the gifts of Mother Nature will be depleted and the future will be dark and starless. Fortunately, the message has been printed in English, as well as the album title and track, in such a way as to allow even those who do not chew Cyrillic capture snippets of lyrical important.

As in the previous album, this time also show a preference for simple solutions, often repeated with minor variations, reducing the contribution of the technique. If logic and rationality were guiding the exclusive review of this work, then we should talk about music simplistic and lacking in variation. "No Stars, Only Full Dark," on the contrary, it is an emotional journey introspective, but not perfect staff, whose leadership is the heart and not the cold intellect, so you'll have to tune in to these coordinates to be able to appreciate. The advice is to enjoy it as single stream, without vivisezionarlo in individual parts, because you would lose completely the "poetry".