SORNI NAI

It's honestly quite hard to just introduce, or give some form of reassurance for this album, as there really isn't anything else like it for me, so instead I would like to tell of a sort of irrational fear, but respect for the winter.

To me, the winter is a strange time. It is the start and the end of the year, so during the winter there is usually a lot of staying at home, more than what I normally do. It symbolizes thought for me, as it leads into the future, as I sometimes wonder what'll come of me in the next tomorrow. As many may agree, the future is terrifying as it delves into the fear of the unknown. We do not have a machine that can allow us to see into something so mysterious and weird as time, and while I cannot definitively say the unknown scares me as greatly as something like death, or spiders, or heights, or what have you, it still at least makes me wonder, nay even ponder about the aspects that time has given me. We can look at the past, but the future will put us in a chokehold no matter when or where we may be able to look at it with the proper gear.

For me, Sorni Nai by the Russian post metal band Kauan represents that fear, as well as the loneliness and intrigue it may hold.

To give some clarification on what this album is about, this album is a concept record based on the tragic Dyatlov Pass Incident, which was a 1959 event that transpired in Russia, with 9 hikers dying of mysterious, yet found out to be mere natural circumstances. Reading about that incident has given me quite a new perspective on what this album means for my thoughts on the ivory white snow that coats my hometown during the winter seasons.

Whilst, sad to say, I cannot quite fully relate to the events that happened in 1959, as I am an American and not a Russian, I can feel sympathy and some form of relatability to them as I live in a town that usually gets quite a lot of snow each year during the winter seasons, and so I can have at least some eye level in terms of sympathy on that fateful day in Eastern Europe.

Hearing about the incident, whilst also hearing the music, has made me find a strange feeling that I haven't gotten in quite a while, not since I have heard Godspeed You! Black Emperor's Slow Riot For New Zero Kanada, or, in a more LP example, ( ) by Sigur Ros.

The best way I could describe the feeling I get with this album is a strange sense of loneliness, as well as a puncturing inconsolable feeling that drifts through the seams. I guess what I am trying to say is that the sound this album exudes is one that Sigur Ros does with their albums, mixed with the harsh and brutality of black and doom metal groups like My Dying Bride and or Thy Catafalque.

However, honestly the real beauty of this album doesn't lie in the enigmatic post rock and post metal, which, do not get me wrong, is stellar, but it is the more atmospheric and ambient portions that get me the most. I believe the song At spells it best, specifically with the part of a Russian woman (who I assume is related in some way to one of the 9 hikers) talking and crying. Whilst I do not understand what she is saying, her tears and whimpers make me feel a certain pity that is hard to describe, almost like seeing a moth with a damaged wing trying to fly. The ending song of Sat is another good example of this, being this enigmatic climax as the album, more specifically the hikers lives remembered through the sound and sheer will it exudes, dies on Hell's coldest day. My words honestly cannot give it justice, you really have to listen to it for yourself.

I find this album to not only be one of the best post rock albums, but THE best post metal album. I think all the albums I consider to be a masterpiece have made me feel a certain way that no other album could. A otherworldly sense of beauty and spectacle with Yes' Close To The Edge, or some kind of horror and discomfort with Current 93's I Have A Special Plan For This World. This album makes me feel cold, for the lack of a better term, and it honestly nearly made me cry. I am not a crier, that is for certain, but if your album can make me have a near breakdown of tears, then you gained not only my love, my interest, but also my biggest hand of respect. Truly a sad, wondrous, but sad spectacle put on display.