Land Under The Black Wings: Blood (Blk) (Gate)

Gatefold 2LP (black vinyl). Dymna Lotva have many reasons to carry the torch of rebellion. The duo had to flee their native Belarus due to political persecution and attempts by the Lukashenka dictatorship to censure and suppress their art. On their third album, "The Land under the Black Wings: Blood" (original, not transcribed tile: "????? ??? ??????? ???????: ????"), Dymna Lotva continue to sing songs filled with grief and pain. The Belarusians have beautifully and powerfully enhanced their very personal style. With a solid base in black metal, but also taking many elements from doom as well as traditional music, the duo has moved beyond the post-black metal tag and created melancholic, haunting melodies that bear their unmistakable trademark and results in a unique emotional sound. Dymna Lotva base their lyrics on true tales from Belarus, which is filled with accounts of sorrow gleaned from historical archives or folklore, while new horrors are committed in their country every day. Composer Jauhien Charkasau and vocalist Katsiaryna "Nokt Aeon" Mankevich date the inception of Dymna Lotva to November 8, 2015. The spark that ignited their musical fire was the news of Belarusian writer Svetlana Alexandrovna Alexievich winning the Nobel Prize in Literature. On the same day, the duo created their first song, which was inspired by the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe and released as a single entitled '??????? ???????? ?????' ("A Solitary Human Voice") in 2016. This was followed by Dymna Lotva's first full-length "The Land under the Black Wings: Swamp" (????? ??? ??????? ???????: ??????) in the same year. The debut album also formed the first part of a conceptual trilogy based on the duo's homeland. With their sophomore album, "Wormwood" (?????), which is not part of the planned trilogy, Dymna Lotva returned to the topic of Chernobyl in 2017. In 2020, Dymna Lotva openly supported the protests against their country's dictator Lukashenka. In 2021, following a politically motivated trial of singer Lesley Knife, who was the guest vocalist on the latest single "To Freedom" (?? ????), all the band's scheduled concerts were officially banned and they had to disband their live line-up. Vocalist Nokt Aeon was forced to leave the country to avoid arrest. The duo intended to reunite in Ukraine, but then Russia invaded the country. Two weeks after the outbreak of war, the singer finally escaped from the heavy fighting around the city of Irpin. Both musicians were later able to meet again in Poland. For Dymna Lotva the release of "The Land under the Black Wings: Blood" (????? ??? ??????? ???????: ????) is also an act of defiance. Their music can be read in more than one way. By itself it is an extremely beautiful yet also a very painful piece of contemporary metal on the dark end of the spectrum with an audible Belarusian sound. Yet in a wider artistic context, Dymna Lotva unleash a furious and mournful cry for freedom and justice with "The Land under the Black Wings: Blood" (????? ??? ??????? ???????: ????).