Band: BURGULI
Country: Spain
Title: Runes
Label: Orbis Alia Productions
Year: 2020
Style: Ambient Black Metal

Review:
Burguli was founded in 2013 as a one-man Black Metal band, but the first demo I've heard, The Pathway Is More Clear in Darkness from 2014, was an embarrassing attempt at coming up with some decent Raw Black Metal from (hopefully) a kid that just started playing instruments; don't even know how the previous 2 demos from 2013 and 2014 sound, but I'm not curious either. Anyway, moving forward, in 2015 the demo Ombres featuring 10 tracks offers some improvement on guitars, a more acceptable production, and a better, more interesting atmosphere alltogether, although remaining in the primitive, raw kind of Black Metal with plenty of awkward passages that only kids can come up with. A year later, in 2016, Lord Gorthaur (the man behind Burguli) decided to re-record the whole Ombres demo and present it as his debut album, and somehow, if you follow the band's "career" it all starts to make sense and sounds like a premeditated trajectory of keeping things as basic as possible yet creating a dense, obscure, awkward atmosphere through its compositions; yet it you only meet the band only with this album, it still sounds puerile as hell. The guitars are more organic sounding, the drums as well, and the vocals as tormented as ever. Fast forward to 2020, Burguli returns with a new EP, Runes, limited to 100 copies on CDR released on Orbis Alia Productions, his own label. 4 new tracks clocking 25 minutes of playing time where the music has become a raw, traditional slow to mid-tempo Black Metal as we were used to hear coming out of Norway in the mid '90's, better sounding than the previous releases, but still keeping things to a minimum level of complexity and technical detail. The atmosphere Burguli manages to create is the actual win here, and from my point of view is what makes this band worth checking out (but as a whole, going through all its outputs), and this only if he is true about what he's doing (if you listen to the track The Dark Host, which is the stupidest track ever made on the face of the Earth, you'll have second thoughts on the man's honesty). Gorthaur's vocals are also something else than what we're used to: really tormented, dying, hopeless, impressive indeed. Bottom line, if you're into raw, primitive, simplistic but heavily oppressive Black Metal, I suggest you give this project a chance, you'll either hate it to bits or resonate with it.
Reviewed by Adrian
Rating: 6/10

Contact:
burguli.bandcamp.com