Like a lot of you, Drudkh first popped up on my radar with their 2006 release, Blood In Our Wells. It really took me a long time to look beyond the hype that album generated, but I eventually came to appreciate it for what it was. What it wasn’t was The Second Coming of a pagan Christ. But it was a solid folk black metal album, hitting closer to the mark of how this music should sound than say, a band like Agolloch; who made a lot of promises I felt that they never could deliver on.

My next experience with Drudkh was 2010’s Handful of Stars, which I thought was amazing. I liked the trancey plod of it; the steady 4/4 backbeat and the huge chords. It put me in the same mood as Brave Murder Day era Katatonia; lush, dark. Seductively simple, yet subtle and sophisticated.

In fact, I was surprised by how divisive it was to all of you. Oh well; pearls amongst swine.

So, when I first put this on, and it wasn’t a Handful of Stars Pt 2, I was sort of disappointed. To say the least, my first play-through was underwhelming. Generic – where are the riffs? Not quite gayer than Wolves in the Throneroom. However, my second play-through had my rapt attention. Rad. Very audible bass. There’s those riffs. Everything is as it ought to be.My third time through, and only this existed.

Swirling, lush, beautifully pastural melodies, with just slithering veins of discordant menace, drifting through the air like a fleeting scent of distant death amongst an orchard in bloom.

I haven’t enjoyed a folk/pagan/nature-worshipping black metal album this much in a while, and I think A Furrow Cut Short can hold it’s own against Titans of the genre such as Ulver’sBergtatt, Borknagar’s Olden Domain, or Blut Aus Nord’s Memoria Vetusta III.

Truly beautiful music.

[Visit the band's website]

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