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An Cath (The Battle)

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In the space of little more than a year, the Northern Ireland one-man black metal band Dratna (which is its creator’s name rendered in a medieval Irish language) has released three EPs of increasing quality and coalescing focus. The first two were Clíodhna and Altar, and the latest is An Cath (The Battle), which was on released April 20th.

The best of these four new songs is the opener, “Shadow of the Mountain“, whose plaintive piano chords slowly ring out over a haze of caustic riffing, hammering percussion, and roaring vocals. The shimmering lead that surfaces over a more stately rhythm (and resurfaces later) holds its own fiery allure, but it’s that keyboard melody, which eventually becomes more animated and elaborate, that sticks in the memory, perhaps because it’s atypical of black metal.

The following three tracks aren’t mundane either. Each holds its own delights — the combination of electronic pulses, shining ethereal tones, rocking rhythms, and a scintillating solo in the raw and riff-tastic title track; the bleak, spectral atmosphere that shrouds the blistering acidity of “He Is Born of Fire”; and the anthemic heavy metal grandiosity that makes “Seasons of the Eel” such a blood-pumping extravagance (though it too includes hypnotizing keyboard accents).

It may go too far to say that Dratna‘s stylistic adventures have completely coalesced, but we’re at the point when the music’s idiosyncrasies have begun to sound like a style all its own. I think it will be very interesting to find out what comes next (a debut album is in the works).

Words by - No Clean Singing

Belfast Northern Ireland - One Man Band - Northern Irish Black Metal.