Review by Felix on November 24, 2023.

It’s cool. Indeed, it’s simply cool to start an album with harsh guitars and a raw voice right from the beginning. No keyboards that try to set the stage, no howling winds or some crude tones nobody needs. Sarke start “Viige Urh” in a conventional yet proud way and this makes me smile for the first time while I listen to the album.

Despite their more or less conservative beginning, Sarke are not easy to categorize. A mostly dragging song like “Upir” does not sound like a typical doom track, sharp thrash riffs were apparently fully booked during the recording sessions and the songs also have not much or even nothing in common with black metal, if we ignore a dark basic mood. This state of confusion seems to be intentional. Sarke do not shy away from mixing nearly dreamy guitar tones or female singing with droning Celtic Frost. Okay, the Swiss legend already proved that the latter can work excellently (“Necromantical Screams”) and Sarke’s “Jutul” fails to reach the quality level of this legendary closer. Anyway, Sarke’s songs have one element that shows their togetherness. All of them can rely on their profound, non-conform heaviness.

While the band always works with only a small amount of resources, it manages to change the mood with almost playful ease. You never know whether the next guitar tones will bring a new frustrating, melancholic or heroic sound. Sarke’s approach is not predictable, although the songs get stuck too often in slow rhythms. The mid-paced opener, simultaneously the title track, is almost a speedy tornado in comparison with the material that follows after. In this track, the mood changing tones come from the keyboards and they give the song a fantastic additional aroma. Nevertheless, the absolutely dominating element on “Viige Urh” are the guitars. They do not fear to offer pretty strange solos, but their main part is the offering of very powerful lines. Inter alia they present a perfect duet with the trumpet-like keyboards in “Dagger Entombed”.

Sometimes I think I have recognized some Darkthrone-esque guitar parts and maybe a song like “Church of Real Metal” would be no alien on “Viige Urh”. Nevertheless, Sarke do not walk on trodden paths and especially the first three tracks cast a mighty spell upon the listener. Unfortunately, the remaining five pieces cannot compete with this eerie triple strike. Influences from the seventies shimmer through the compositions and that’s not always to their advantage, but they work excellently at the end of “Upir”, where an impressively characteristic guitar line coalesces with the sounds of the keyboards. Summing up, the very well produced album is definitely a good and slightly morbid one. From my point of view, it could have been a nearly fantastic one with two additional speed rockets, but I also like it the way it is.

Rating: 7.6 out of 10