Voting for the best albums of the last three years for the Latvian Metal Music of the Year award event, which will take place on March 11, at the club “Melnā Piektdiena”, has ended. Last year was very productive for “metalists” – in total, almost two dozen albums were submitted for evaluation, and one of the most promising masterpieces, which was also included in the Top 5 of the vote, is the “deadly” band with the “delicious” name “Darrva” (with two “r ”!) the second studio album released last year just a couple of days before Christmas.
“The group was born in Jelgava in the spring of 2013. The basic idea was to create dark and heavy music about the nature of our earth, the elements and its victories over humanity. There is a pagan, misanthropic mood in the lyrics, although the band’s style is difficult to define even for the members themselves,” such a post can be read on “Darrvas” Bandcamp profile, but in general the musicians of this band are quite mysterious, so nothing much can be announced about the new album – only that, that it contains a dozen tracks (including the intro and the hidden “track” “Black and White City”). The recording was made under the auspices of Kārlis Šteinmanis. Lineup – vocalist Joe or Jānis Tiltiņš (in 2017 he took the microphone instead of Mārčas Drava), guitarist Slavik or Vyacheslavs Murugovs, bassist Maize or Mārtiņš Jansons and drummer Brūss Kalniņš or simply Bruce. So far, the official discography of “Darrvas” has included two works – the EP “Saule neuzausīs”, released at the end of 2013, and the full-length album “Laika Rats” (2017). It should be noted that Joe and Bruce also play in the heavy music group “Deodium”.
PAR. “Darrva” plays Latvian music – this time as well. Monumental and somewhat even epic compositions that require listening and going deeper into what you hear, but this is nothing surprising, because “Darrva” works carefully on his image – also in concerts. It is difficult to single out any song in particular, because it is recommended to listen to the whole album as a conceptual work, but primarily “Atmodas vilnis” and “Jūras arāji” caught my ears, but especially “Zeme deg”. Black metal guitars and the pace of the game on the basis of “deadly” vocals with patriotic lyrics – it’s good!
AGAINST. It is difficult and sometimes even impossible to understand the lyrics with the naked ear, but the fact that “it is difficult to single out a particular song” is not so good at all. In addition, the impression remains that the album is too long, too stretched, for so many compositions, the musicians of “Darrvas” did not really have enough powder.
