KAUAN - Ice Fleet (2021)

Led by Anton Belov, KAUAN, a post-metal/post-rock band from the East, have made music for well over a decade now, having debuted back in 2007, and made some serious stirr with an album Sorni Nai six years ago. They are back now with another phenomenal release, based on a true and eerie story, Ice Fleet. 

I was so sure this is a Finnish/Estonian band, after all, those languages are so difficult to master and the music's atmosphere is appropriate, but no, "KAUAN are from Russia, sing in Finnish, and are based in Ukraine, but their music is universally stirring". Which is helpful as the album is meant to tell the real story of ghost ships found in the Arctic and it's "based on real letters, articles and events. The album is separated into seven narrative chapters carefully described with an included libretto". If you want to get more into it, the band offers a series of FB posts that shed some light on this mystery, as well as, and it's not a joke, "a 40-page tabletop RPG adventure" that "will be available in print together with limited LP and CD versions of the album". Cool.

But coming back to music, the album offers the most frozen post-metal-in-spirit post-rock experience you can imagine. The heavy and overwhelming composition are at the same time blackgaze-like smooth and captivating to reflect the Arctic conditions, the temperature, the blizzards. Every sound here has its weight, not only the heavy guitars but also piano keys that resound in the blank spaces of Maanpako like sharp stars that announce disasters (or overwhelming post-metal screams in this case).

Ice Fleet costs 8 USD.

Check: Taistelu

Country: Russia/Ukraine

Genre: dark post-rock

Label: Artoffact Records

:bandcamp:

:facebook:
:official:

:instagram:

:soundcloud:

:youtube:

:spotify: