ИЛ: A New Name for Doom

What can the Western man say about Russia?

What can we, fat on the spoils of capitalism and cultural hegemony, hope to comprehend about the continent-in-a-country that brought us Stalker, Solzhenitsyn, and the Skoptsy movement?

Winston Churchill once called it “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” A land apart, neighbouring 14 countries yet resembling none of them.

Russian art can feel equally impenetrable, a cloak of cultural dissonance descending over imperfect translations and alien references that make it feel at once bewildering and divine.

With this in mind, it will come as a relief to most listeners that the path tread by Moscow’s ИЛ (pronounced “IL”) is a somewhat more comfortable experience to our tender ears.

Of course, “tender” is a relative term when talking about a band that shrouds itself in as many bass frequencies and cavernous vocal lines as ИЛ do. But the fact remains that on ‘Ересь’ (2020), ИЛ are not pulling a Khanate, and the band never sacrifice songcraft for the blood-vomit sounds the album artwork would have you expect (artwork that is eerily similar in style to Longing by Bell Witch, which is still their best album by the way – fight me).

Hell, you could even call most of Ересь accessible.

This in no way detracts from the visceral impact of the album at all. In fact, ИЛ actually manage to strike that golden ratio of thick heaviness, taut melody, grim atmosphere, and infectious energy just right.

And as someone forced to hear many a band whose whole raison d'être is a slavish dedication to just one of those things, the considered mix of these vital elements is truly appreciated. Don’t believe me? Then believe the sight of my hands curling up to grasp those invisible oranges at the end of “Чёрная Мать.”

Brutality gives way to melody. Melody gives way to atmosphere. Atmosphere gives way to energy. And energy gets Ересь out of the soporific territory many doom releases find themselves in.

That said, is this even doom? Or is it more on the sludge/death metal side of the spectrum as Encyclopaedia Metallum seems to think? And at this stage of the genres’ cross pollination, does it even matter?

With its earworm riffs and attention-holding dynamic shifts, Ересь is far from being the inscrutable riddle-mystery-enigma that Churchill warned of. To ears acquainted with heavy music this album may even sound downright catchy in parts. Satisfyingly catchy, it must be said.

So there you go people: an album that is both an enjoyable slab of Muscovite heft and a piece of Russian art you can enjoy without a Ph.D. and a migraine.