Writing about the music I love is a dream come true. To be able to write about quality music coming straight from Slovakia is just the icing on the cake. I rarely look at the music scene through rose-tinted glasses, and the Central European scene in particular has a lot of catching up to do, especially since it flourished like a meadow in the valleys of the Slovak Ore Mountains in the ’90s. Besna are one of the bands that don’t need rose-tinted glasses to enjoy. Their latest album, Krásno, combines post-metal with a very interesting form of progressive metal. And it’s all interspersed with excellent lyrics that are an unobtrusive but very clear testimony to today’s rotting society.
Beautifully wrapped up in a relatively short 31-minute package, the Krásno experience is easy to digest. Post-metal is always more about atmosphere than instrumental prowess, but Besna convinces me otherwise. The drums are perfect, they don’t get lost somewhere in the background as usual. Sonically, Krásno is melodic, but also a rather heavier variant of post-metal. Besna don’t just stick to endless tremolo riffs, but also add a big dose of progressive metal. Good prog metal, not the kind that urges you to vomit after two minutes of its musical theory wankfest. Dissonant passages intersperse a heavy atmosphere that gives way to a hum of hope, only to be silenced by sadly beautiful melodies. This furious journey never loses my enthusiasm.
The lyrics across Krásno alone could be a chapter of this review. The title track underlines this with a great solo by Jakub Tirčo and a beautiful synth line that, together with great lyrics about the unnecessary isolationism of today’s world, tears my soul apart. Such a mix of heartbreaking music and topical themes about the fasciation of society, the decline of social bonds and community spirit, coupled with a much-needed look into the past at the unjust struggle with the tyrants of the communist dictatorship, is a powerful experience (perhaps not for people who don’t come from a country that enjoyed the “freedom” of the Eastern Bloc).
Besna have managed to produce a half-hour album that has both an intro and an intermezzo, and the two tracks also serve as regular tracks. The length of the album definitely plays into my hands, because it never loses its power that way. Combining so many different influences in such a small space is not easy with Besna mixing moments of great post-black with crushing riffs reminiscent of death metal. But Krásno remains beautifully detailed, never feeling disjointed. Each track is a novel to itself, and one by one they reveal a beautiful landscape in a brooding environment. I hope Besna continue down this path of big compositions and bold elements in the future. Krásno is a masterpiece of songwriting and will remain a staple in my non-death metal playlist.
