apanthropy

Këkht Aräkh
Night & Love
Sacred Bones Records
Released: 8/4/2019
Version Reviewed: 12″ LP, Reissue. Metallic Silver, Unknown Quantity.

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A1 – As the Night Falls…
A2 – Elegy for the Memory of Me
A3 – Den Venstre Hånd På Den Høyre
A4 – Night
A5 – Her Body Strewn with Petals Black
A6 – Primal Beauty of Silence
A7 – As the Wounds Gently Bleed
B1 – Love
B2 – Down to the Depths of Inner Cold
B3 – Mysteriet Med Svartfiolett
B4 – Through Night Which Knows No Dawn
B5 – Forever Night Castle of Love
B6 – …And Never Ends (Eternal Love)
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Këkht Aräkh is the offspring of displaced Ukranian musician Dmytro Eugenovich Marchenko, who operated under the alias of ‘Yokai’ during the demo era of the project, and now refers to himself as ‘Crying Orc’ since 2018, playing a somber combination of black metal and ambient soundscaping. Up to this point, Këkht Aräkh has released one demo, two singles, and two full lengths since 2018.

Night & Love is Këkht Aräkh’s debut full-length, a beautifully crafted nod to the traditional second-wave of black metal, interspersed with ambient passages in the form of keyboards, spoken word, and acoustic guitar. Released initially in 2019, the album has seen multiple reissues in its relatively short lifespan, including Finland’s Livor Mortis reissuing the album on all formats throughout 2019 and 2020, New York’s Sacred Bones Records reissuing the album on CD and vinyl in 2022, and China’s Pest Productions being the most recent, reissuing the album on CD in 2023. Clearly, there is a demand here.

Opening with the short intro piece, ‘As the Night Falls…,’ which is a brief motif of nylon-string acoustic with an accompaniment of soft keyboards, this sets the atmospheric tone for the rest of Night & Love. These two instruments – these two palettes of tones, in particular, will show up repeatedly. With the first proper track, ‘Elegy for the Memory of Me,’ the keyboard melody from the intro carries over, the simple sway of two or three chord progressions on the guitar begins; compositional mechanisms that will carry most of the songs. The drums carry a steady blastbeat with tinny snares and reverb-drenched spatial cymbals, objectively heavy on fills, needed for its goals. There is a break towards the middle of the track, an abrupt shift in motif in percussion, only for a moment before the song fades down back to the nylon-string acoustic guitar.

As stated, the palette of tones – the nylon-stringed acoustic and the soft presence of tempered synth – is readily interlaced the songs, woven like the individual stitch that creates something of a larger tapestry.

‘Den Venstre Hånd På Den Høyre’ enters on a swell of distortion once the acoustic guitar fades, largely following the same formula as ‘Elegy for the Memory of Me.’ Compositionally simplistic black metal that nods heavily to the second wave; two to four chord primarily rhythm-based progressions with an accompanying melody on guitar, a steady circular rhythmic blastbeat to hold time on percussion. Markedly shorter than the proper opener and sung entirely in Norwegian.

The fourth track, ‘Night,’ is a spoken word interlude of sorts, an ambient passage that combines soft keyboards with the sound of night insects over meekly, quietly spoken passages from album guest Sam Brown. This is the longest track on Night & Love and the most laidback and tempered of all, its presence and position is something that is both interesting and questionable.

The peace of ‘Night’ is quickly washed away with the beginning of ‘Her Body Strewn with Petals Black,’ yet another nod to the early second wave of black metal. It is here it feels as if Këkht Aräkh is hitting his ‘stride,’ in terms of composition and delivery. The progressions are more proper and the accompanying melodies more appropriate and compatible. The structure is more dynamic than the prior tracks as well. Again, towards the end of the track, the song begins to fade in exchange for the tonality of the melodic nylon-stringed acoustic.

‘The Primal Beauty of Silence’ is the shortest proper track on all of Night & Love, clocking in at just over two minutes. Comprised mostly of single-note tremolo picked sequences that eventually evolve into dancing open-note chords. There is a brief passage of acoustic guitar before the song returns to its central narrative.

‘As the Wounds Gently Bleed’ returns the keyboards back into the compositional forefront.  This track is yet another burst of sonic information that fades into acoustic euphoria before returning back into a quick burst of raging downbeats that evolve into fill-heavy blasting, eventually fading into another acoustic interlude to end the song.

‘Love’ is the longest track on the album, is sonically and compositionally similar to the fourth track, ‘Night.’ It is another keyboard-heavy interlude that utilizes a great deal of background ambience to drive the track, namely flowing water and night noises. This, once again, also features a brief spoken word passage from album guest Sam Brown.

The album reawakens with ‘Down to the Depths of Inner Cold,’ which starts off on a much slower pace than the other tracks on Night & Love, initially. Rather than a constant blastbeat, there are passages of half-time that allow the song more space to breathe, and the combination of arpeggios and open-note tremolo chords adds a depth to the riffcraft that was lacking from the other tracks.

‘Mysteriet Med Svartfiolett’ sonically follows the same formula as the intro track, a brief motif that utilizes the nylon-stringed acoustic to walk in the subsequent track, ‘Through Night Which Knows No Dawn,’ arguably the most direct and heaviest track on the entire release. Despite this, the compositional aspects remain static to the rest of the elements on the album.

The final proper song on Night & Love is ‘Forever Night Castle of Love,’ which is an all-acoustic track that utilizes nylon-stringed acoustic, clean vocals, light keyboard accents, and vocal harmonizations. For a black metal album, this is certainly a strange track, as it contains no trace of anything ‘metal’ related whatsoever. Regardless, it’s an interesting track, it fits the album well, and it’s a great palette cleanser when the record is experienced as a whole piece.

‘…and Never Ends (Eternal Love)’ closes Night & Love properly and is just a simple artistic vocal harmonization outro piece.

Këkht Aräkh’s Night & Love is an interesting debut album. Artistic, expressionist, daring, different, and in some senses, romantic…and alone. A combination of black metal and ambience, the incorporation of heavy acoustic and clean elements puts it in a category that most bands wouldn’t dare enter.

As an end result, with all the unique elements blended into one piece, it is cursed to be best listened to as exactly that, one unique whole piece. While some individual ‘black metal’ pieces could be plucked from the running list, you’re robbing yourself of the artistic merits that the rest of the album brings, and while tracks like ‘Night,’ ‘Love,’ and ‘Forever Night Castle of Love,’ on their own simply are not ‘metal,’ it’s unfair to attempt to deliberately rob them of their context within the album.

For a debut release, Këkht Aräkh has a bold showing with Night & Love. It is simple. Everything has a place here. Dark, Romantic second-wave-tinged black metal that is best experienced as the sum of all of its moving parts.

Label: Sacred Bones Records
Band: Këkht Aräkh

-AJK