Dola - Czasy (2021)

Dola is Polish artsy and environmentally aware post-metal band who debuted last year with a well-received self-titled album. Now it's the time (it's a pun) for the follow-up with the intense and extremely unnerving in many ways album called Czasy.

This album is said to be an escapism tool for the band, used to leave this troublesome times. And as such, it is particularly melodic for post-metal music. On the other hand, it is meant to be a commentary for the reality around us as it is now (which is suggested by the band's name (translated to "Fate") and the album's title ("Times")), and this reality is drawn in very dark colours due to, for the most part, the climate crisis that will prove to be the humanity's main disaster in the history. You can notice it in the track titles (Wszystko odrośnie meaning "Everything will grow again", presumably after human cease to exist) but mostly in the very bleak, very heavy-burden-depicting music.

It's not only about the crushingly massive guitars and slow-paced compositions that feel like the title's "time" - slow but inevitable, nothing you could run from. In general, it is more about gloomy ambiance than pure desperation, as if the artists were already at peace with what's coming (best audible in the darkly sacral and airy moments). But there are still fragments that indicate the incoming doom and the chaos that will come right after in a very desperate way, as the beginning of quite jazzy Kije ("Sticks") and the occasional post-hardcore-like vocal intrusions all over the place.

Czasy costs 20 PLN.

Check: Nowa jesień

Country: Poland

Genre: apocalyptic post-metal

Label: Widno

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