Style: Blackened Folk/Power Metal (mixed vocals)
Review by: Zach
Country: US-TX
Release date: 7 January 2022
For those of you in the fantasy writing world (or just the general writing world) you probably know of the prolific output of Brandon Sanderson. For those of you who don’t, allow me to give you a short explanation. Brandon Sanderson lives, breathes, eats, and shits writing. Even if you aren’t a fan, admire the sheer inhuman output and consistency of the man. But with a book, everything is between the writer and editor. It’s on the writer to whip up a readable first draft, and then go through the tedious process of revision before finally getting it released. With a band, your bandmates are the editors. You could come into the jam session with this incredible riff only for all your bandmates to shut it down. And because life is a give and take, you just save that riff for your side project. So, why do I bring up Brando Sando and his inhuman output? Because Culak, our one-man band of the hour, has released 13 studio albums since 2013.
Christian Culak, the man behind the project, is clearly passionate about his music. But when you’re a one-man band (and quite literally, he does all the production work, too), you are the judge, jury and executioner of your own music. Whatever you say, goes, and nobody’s around to tell you no. Can you see what I’m getting at here?
Culak has a ton of fantastic ideas here. There have been plenty of bands to paint their albums around massive centerpieces of songs. Sigh’s ‘Lucid Nightmare’ and the newly Subway-Approved™ Rototypical’s ‘Honir’ come to mind immediately. And I must praise the ambition of one man doing all this on his own.
But my god this music is boring. After nearly 2 minutes of buildup, I figured something better would come out of the beginning of ‘Ill Winds’ than a run of the mill power metal lead. It’s really disappointing that Culak could’ve slapped an amazing riff on that beginning section and had me hooked, because I was somewhat enjoying it until then.
And then…oh boy. ‘The Crusade’, the album’s seven-part suite, begins with a not so bad black metal riff coupled by some one-man wails that the album could’ve done without. And it’s here where I began to notice how mushy everything sounds. Every instrument aside from the drums sound like they’re recorded underwater. I can barely tell what the hell is happening in ‘Face the Fury’ because the instruments are barely discernible.
But what happens next is just inexcusable. If you write what is essentially a giant, seven-part song, at least add a transition so it’s not the musical equivalent of a jumpcut straight into acoustic guitars. I was expecting every song to flow in typical prog fashion, but instead, I got a jarring beginning with too long of a buildup on ‘Prudence’. Once again, Culak hits me with these boring power chord riffs and clean vocals that I can barely understand.
After nearly putting me to sleep, Culak ups the energy in ‘Fortitude’ where he decides it’s time to be a death metal band. So, we’ve gone from power to doom to death all in the span of three songs now. And the song structures don’t get any better. ‘Temperance’ starts with a downright annoying riff and decides to hold variations of that through the entire song until the acoustic part at the end BECAUSE PROG.
At this point, ‘Justice’ and ‘Quadrivium’ basically bled together into one song because they both have the same exact song structure. Start with the trem riff, end with the cleans. My neurons only started functioning again when ‘Nimbus’ starts with a riff and drum beat that sounds awfully close to Trivium’s ‘The Sin and the Sentence’. The acoustic interludes were actually getting on my nerves at this point. All the “ooohs” and “aaahhs” were giving me a bloody headache.
And then this man decides to end his album with a 12-minute song. I wanted to turn it off. I wanted to go back to my Dessiderium listening streak. I’ve never heard a 12-minute song with more filler. There are sections where nothing but the same acoustic strumming patterns and chords I’ve been hearing for the past hour just keep going. And going. And going. This is not riding a good riff or section. A band like Opeth knows when they’ve got a good section to ride out. The outro of ‘Deliverance’ could’ve been three hours long and I wouldn’t have cared because it hits harder than a semi. But this? This isn’t it.
At the end of the day, Culak is one man. He’s just a guy with an obvious passion for metal who wants to share his music with the world. Relatable. But he clearly needs to branch out and share his ideas with others if he can’t be trusted to edit them on his own. With a few more inputs and ideas getting thrown around, this could’ve been really good, but until Culak isn’t just Culak, it’s not.
Recommended tracks: None
Recommended for fans of: You’re better off listening to Opeth
You may also like: You’re better off listening to Dessiderium
Final verdict: 4/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Instagram | Metal-Archives page
Label: Independent
Culak is:
– Christian Culak (everything)
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