Olhava are a Russian atmospheric/post-black metal band and this is their seventh album.
Olhava have built up an eviable body of work, including 2021’s Frozen Bloom, 2022’s Reborn and 2024’s Sacrifice. This brings us nicely to the 78-minute Memorial, a record that takes us on another gargantuan excursion into post-blackened waters.
Memorial follows on directly from Sacrifice, continuing the Ageless River series of interludes. As was previously the case, these are well-developed mood-pieces, serving as extra enrichments to the album’s primary four tracks of expansive epic-length songs. These main songs continue to deliver vast soundscapes of shimmering intensity, resplendent darkness, and glittering teeth. Olhava’s music combines the blackgaze and atmospheric black metal strains into a lethally effective dose of emotion-saturated post-blackened venom.
Memorial is an immersive, captivating experience, almost meditative. The atmosphere is rich and luscious throughout. It drips with feeling and textured darkness. Whether sprawling with ambient depth or raging with blackened extremity, Olhava provide an ocean of mood-focused expressiveness to fall deeply into. Memorial offers a dreamlike ethereal journey into post-black metal and spacious ambient light that’s absorbing.
Olhava have a consistent ability to leave the listener coming away from their records impressed. Memorial is one of their strongest releases yet, and it’s heartily recommended for anyone into music with tags like blackgaze, post-black metal, atmospheric/ambient black metal, etc.
Wonderbox Metal 