Mrtva Vod – Divided in Life LP

(Description from Stygian Black Hand)

Stygian Black Hand presents the debut full-length from Ukrainian black metal solo artist Mrtva Vod, "Divided in Life". This album, a mosaic pieced together from musical motifs and personal feelings brooding within the artist for almost a decade, encompasses a dark and negative outlook on the world through the medium of black metal.

Musically, "Divided in Life" is a journey through bleak atmospheres cast by melancholic guitars drenched in distorted coldness. Mrtva Vod evokes such a powerfully vitriolic sound through grimly melodic chord progressions and eerily arpeggiated slower passages, harnessing the essence of 90s Scandinavian black metal acts like Armagedda, Sortsind, and Darkthrone's golden era, as well as classic horror movie scores.

While such dark and dreadful tones are commonplace in black metal, those which Mrtva Vod evoke come from personal experiences growing up in the unpredictable and bellicose environment of Ukraine. With the very real terror of war only now unfurling on the global stage, Mrtva Vod has existed behind this curtain well before it was drawn to the eyes of the West and is there now living through it. The threats of displacement, destruction, and death are ever-looming for the young artist behind this project, and are undeniably coupled to his artistic output.

Mrtva Vod's sentiments toward the cruel, violent world that divides our lives are summed by one particular lyric from "To Ne Zlyva Rydaye Nad Namy": "То не злива ридає над нами, Небо сцить на наші могили!" (It’s not a downpour weeping over us, the sky is pissing on our graves!) Still, Mrtva Vod carries on and delivers a remarkable work of honest black metal. "Divided in Life" will be available on LP from Stygian Black Hand on April 1, 2022.