Band: ASTARIUM
Country: Russia
Title: Drum-Ghoul
Label: More Hate / Symbol of Domination
Year: 2017
Style: Symphonic Black Metal

Review:
Every few months I get to review a new Astarium release, so in my mind this one-man-band from Novosibirsk is extremely active and productive. Although featuring only 4 tracks, this is actually a new full-length album from Astarium, its 6th stuio opus released 2 years after the previous, Nekrocosmo. Recorded, mied and mastered at the end of 2015, I guess it was waiting on SiN's shelves to be released at a 2 years distance since the previous, a practice respected almost to perfection for all Astarium's albums so far. The 4 tracks here are ranging from 8 to 16 minutes in length, so a total of 46 minutes for the whole album, and the material is dedicated to Burzum's legendary Hvis lyset tar oss, with lyrics completely based on a  novel called The Slitherer from the Slime by Lin Carter and Dave Foley; I'm not familiar with this novel but from the lyrics I get it's a gothic tale about darkness, leneliness, monsters, spirits, vampires, that suits Astarium's music pretty good. And regarding the music, there's not much difference since the previous album, I still don't like the synthetic drum programming and the vocals although I find the latter being Astarium's trademark which together with the same synthetic sounding guitar work and the excellent atmospheric, dark, creepy keyboard lines, constitute the band's originality, wether one may like it or not... Astarium is an original band in its own way and although I have continuously criticized the abovementioned elements, I can only say I'm glad SiN continues on his own path because now I'm sure I'll be able to distinguish his work from 100 other. On this album all 4 tracks are following the same Symphonic Black Metal path, without any being only Ambient tracks like on some (most) previous releases, that might be the major difference. For those of you interested in deep dark gothic atmospheres in their music.
Reviewed by Adrian
Rating: 8/10

Contact:
astarium.ru
morehate.com
satanath.com/sodp