Stay Pure D.I.Y

Second to Sun - 'The First Chapter' - Full-lenght - 2015

The band Second To Sun originates from the Russian Federation as a dark instrumental formation. Not so long ago, only four years count since their first EP entity - The God’s Favorite Whore, released the same year the band was formed. The first line-up is quite modest and consisted of Vladimir Klimov – Lehtinen, as the lead guitar player and Artem Vishnyakov as a drummer. Soon after the release of the initial EP, Artem Vishnyakov leaves Second To Sun, so the band continues to be a one man show, but not for long. The following year, 2013 the drummer position in the band is taken by Theodor Borowski, and one more member fills the empty bass guitar position under the name of Anton Danilevsky. Becoming a trio, Second To Sun work intense on releasing their first full album and accomplish producing Based On A True Story in 2013. Filled with inspiration, the following year comes out the second EP Three Fairy Tales and already the band comes close to the margins or being seriously respected metal act. What they offer is something very unusual and uncommon. Their music is a specific mix of many types of music, such as black metal, death metal, metal core and elements of Finno-Ugric ethno textures. In November 2015, their latest album The First Chapter proved once again the hard work of this band, by not missing out a single year since their beginning without writing and publishing new material. The First Chapter has a lot to offer.

Spirit of kusoto is quite an opener for the album, setting off with a chilled and relaxing melody, mostly consisted of synth and keyboard segments, lasting for about 50 seconds and suddenly turning into harsh core breakdown, slow and intense with slight support of an ethno melody from the behind. For most of the song the core feeling is present, while being fulfilled with occasional slow black metal riffs. The tempo is mid-paced but the energy is at its maximum. Eagerly waiting for the next song Red snow (I really like the moniker), the anticipation of the long intro made me feel like the band is going to continue in a quite fast and merciless pace, but I was wrong. Pretty much the mid tempo was kept, the breakdowns were gone and the melodies became more frequent. It’s quite enjoyable but come on guys, make me feel like I want to break something… Me or him follows with the same pattern, and as I started thinking of discarding the content, at the middle of the song Second To Sun blasted some fine mix of thrash and death metal, blast beats and breakdowns. It was worth waiting for. The next composition Land of the fearless birds, it’s quite the opposite. The start is brutal and intimidating, while the end is more melodic and melancholic, again with synths and the interesting ethno moments added. Moving forward it’s The blood libel, quite the song to be skipped the next time I play this, just because it’s too long (the longest here) and really lacking on enthusiasm. But it was worth waiting for Narcat, to the contrary the shortest song on the album. It has by far the best hymn like melody and best breakdowns so far. Definitely it’s the highlight of The First Chapter. Virgo Mitt and Chokk Kapper (roughest one on the album) give the finishing segments here and they tie up the all the loose ends from before. Both of them are hard to the core compositions. Virgo Mitt’s second part of the song is quite enjoyable and refreshing to listen to, even though it sounds like some Disney’s animated movie soundtrack. So there you have it, almost 35 minutes of modern instrumental metal, recorded with great sound quality. The band has a lot of creating potential they have to use, maybe even adding more instruments and features to the whole set.