CISZA – SHE YEARNS FOR OTHER WORLDS

(Andy Synn breaks his silence on the first full-length album from Poland’s Cisza)

Ok, I promise… this is going to be the last of the Black Metal oddities that I write about for a while.

Probably. Maybe. Almost certainly.

That being said, I couldn’t let the opportunity pass by without writing about Cisza‘s intriguing debut album.

After all, while it may not be as overtly “odd” as most of the releases I’ve covered recently it is, however, a record which certain people are more likely to deny actually is Black Metal, due to the fact that its blend of echoing tremolo melodies and rigid rhythmic patterns errs closer towards the punchy, Post-Black approach of bands like Agrypnie, Downfall of Gaia, and Harakiri for the Sky, than it does anything remotely “trve” or “kvlt”.

One thing’s for sure, however – whatever “credibility” the Polish quintet may (or may not) lack in the eyes of the Black Metal elite, they more than make up for in focussed, deliberate power, as the blasting drums and live-wire riffs of opener “Ritual of Wind” quickly attest.

But while Cisza definitely aren’t lacking in their ability to punch well above their weight class – “Never Stroll Behind the Pines”, for example, hits with all the physical and emotional intensity of a hurricane, and only seems to get more intense as it goes on – it’s the group’s ability to blend the aggressive side of their nature with their more epic and atmospheric ambitions, without short-changing either, that marks them out as ones to watch.

Whether it’s their love of weaving wickedly infectious melodies throughout tracks like “Jaki Piękny Świat” and the aforementioned “Ritual of Wind”, their willingness to ease off on the accelerator now and then to allow the music to breathe and brood a little more (as they do during the early White Ward-esque “Withered, Blackened Heart”) or their efforts to diversify and embellish the overall dynamic of songs such as “Path of the Dwarves” (with its whispered opening lines and elegant, elegaic ending) and the rapturous title-track, it’s clear that – even on their debut album – Cisza have ideas and ambitions well above their station.

And although they’re not quite there yet – it will likely take them another album or two to fully define and delineate what it is that will make them truly stand out from their various peers and predecessors – there’s definitely a spark here, a yearning for greater things, that could well ignite into a raging fire in years to come.