Review: Sur Austru – Datura Străhiarelor

Style: progressive black metal, folk black metal (mostly harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Negura Bunget, Enslaved, Heilung, Moonsorrow, Thy Catafalque
Country: Romania
Release date: 30 August 2024

At its core, genre is a reflection of culture: a framework for a specific moment in artistic and societal time. Genre evolves and shifts as do the values underlying them; they capture the zeitgeist. For example, what’s labeled as metal today isn’t the rock your dad delighted in because the artistic and musical expressions have gone far beyond a tritone or two and some distortion come the digital age. Likewise, I could quibble about how Sur Austru elegantly mix black metal, progressive metal, and folk music, but I opine that they simply write Romanian music, an amalgamation of their musical heritage, cultural traditions, and pride for their nation as a musical love letter to Romania; however, genre isn’t why we’re all here, it’s for quality, inspired music: do Sur Austru fit the bill?

For context, out of the skeleton of classic Romanian atmospheric black metal band and cornerstone of Eastern European metal Negurǎ Bunget sprung two amazing successors: Dordeduh and Sur Austru, both of which I discovered with their magnificent 2021 releases, Har and Obârsie, respectively. While both bands provided excellent first impressions, Dordeduh had a clear edge with their refined, progressive songwriting and more crystalline production qualities. Datura Străhiarelor closes the gap. Distilled passion forms Sur Austru’s third album; to start, Sur Austru is a community-driven effort, its cover art painted by carefully-chosen, local artist Bogdan Tigan and its lyrics penned by the young Romanian poet Călin Miclauș, taleing years of dedicated studies into Romanian folklore and mystical traditions—particularly of its eschatology—and the performance is, of course, performed in their native tongue.

Beyond exterior aesthetics, we’re treated to a wealth of instruments, ranging from the traditional metal band (plus flute) to a regional ensemble featuring the toacǎ (Orthodox liturgical percussion instrument), bucium (style of alphorn/bugle), nai (pan flute), and woodblock (percussion). My hesitation to reduce Datura Străhiarelor to mere metal is how well Sur Austru intertwine the folk and metal, closing in on the levels of compositional brilliance of Aquilus’s elegant neoclassical black metal. Elements of black metal suffuse Datura Străhiarelor as a remnant of Negurǎ Bunget, but the metallic sounds serve to emphasize the traditional music, forcing it to be punchier through distortion, adding a heft to morph the delicate, fluty Romanian folk sounds to something closer to the proto-Germanic paganry of Heilung. The greatest strength of Sur Austru’s sound on Datura Străhiarelor, though, is the percussion in its cascading, hypnotic (though never outright repetitive) patterns, building each song’s intensity from cavernous, brooding skin-beatings all the way up to crashing blast beats. Nearly every track builds in this fashion to swirling, sublime crescendos, using the drums’ increasingly speedy ritualistic pounding to mark their progress. These climaxes are certainly the highlights of the album, the culmination of storytelling lyrically and musically, yet, as grandiose sections often are, it’s through their context in which they work best, provided in the form of hazy atmospheres.

Every track on Datura Străhiarelor contains several psychedelic folk sections, flowing in transcendent swaths of new age-y flutes over nature sounds—birds chittering and thunderstorms—and atmospheric synths, conjuring the aura of an alpine trek through the Carpathians, a Romantic gesture through its simple pastoralism. These alternating and layered streams of psychedelia and intricate metal riffing create long, progressive, and meandering tracks, the songwriting exuding both the power and ease of the natural world and the heaviness of death and destruction. For example, intro “Arătarea” has birds chirping, the epic, foreboding war-cries of the bucium, and ends with a triumphant pagan guitar part. “Strânsura” has chants with an air Moonsorrow in the style choice before switching to complex alternate picking at 4:20; the flutes share the lead with the guitars in the bombastic ending sequence. Other tracks lull with a dreamlike quality such as “Cele Rele” or the women’s choir clinching the end of “Fărmăcarea.” On a less serious note, the booming “OOH-AH”s of “Împărăcherea” sound like the boys are working in a dwarven forge, the imagery certainly funny—still epic. 

The sole thing holding Sur Austru back is its lack of memorable melodies. In its fifty-four minute journey through dreams and the end of the world, Sur Austru cover a lot of ground and, obviously, beautifully integrate Romanian music into metal. However, Sur Austru can get a bit lost in the atmosphere—certainly not a problem on its own as their rhythm section and psychedelic tinge more than hold their own—but I feel like even the heroic climaxes lack a certain extra melodic oomph that Dordeduh have mastered. In this regard, Datura Străhiarelor almost functions as a brighter foil to The Ruins of Beverast with its occult, percussive buildups and effortless endowing of magnitude through sweeping structure choices. Despite its slightly lacking melodies, Sur Austru are vastly improved songwriters. 

More progressive and even more Romanian, Datura Străhiarelor handily improves on Obârşie. With an impeccable sense of ebb and flow, Sur Austru do justice to their love of their country, and I want more bands to celebrate their local artists while incorporating regional tradition in their music rather than blindly imitating what’s popular in the West (ie USA and UK). Sur Austru are authentic, and the heartfelt nature of Datura Străhiarelor is obvious: this was laboriously made, and Sur Austru’s passion pays dividends.

Recommended tracks: Cele Rele, Fărmăcarea
You may also like: Dordeduh, The Ruins of Beverast, Thragedium, Finsterforst, Aquilus
Final verdict: 8.5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page

Label: Avantgarde Music – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Sur Austru is:
– Ovidiu Corodan (Bass, Toacă, Vocals)
– Mihai Florea (Guitars, Bucium, Vocals)
– Ionut Cadariu (Keyboards, Flute, Nai, Vocals)
– Tibor Kati (Vocals, Guitars, Keyboards, Bucium)
– Beni Ursulescu (Drums, Vocals)
– Paul Marcu (percussion)
– Călin Puticiu (Percussion, Woodblock)
– Călin Miclauș (lyrics)