Rating: 7.5/10
Release: 11 May 2013
Label: Sublimity Records

Kot Bayn is one of many Folk-metalbands we see growing from the Russian soil. Nowadays when Arkona is becoming a established band in the scene, this means there can grow a lot of sprouts in their surroundings. Kot Bayn has made a début album with this four-track EP.
At first you think you’re dealing with a Korpiklaani clone, but fortunately this feeling goes away very soon. What remains a a nice Slavic sound with nice clean female vocals, solid guitar-riffs, bagpipe and accordion. The songs are of good quality, the compositions are good and they manage to present all their instruments without becoming ‘messy’. The authentic instruments are embedded in their music in a nice way. Listen to a song like Ветер, by the way, one of the stronger tracks of this album, and you can year bagpipe and fierce guitar-riffs and accordion, but all in their own time without interfering with each other. This makes this album a pleasure to listen to, it only lacks a bit of originality. It’s all quite similar to bands like Grai, Rarog and others. Kot Bayn has made a nice one to start with, with good compositions and nice use of authentic instruments.

Tracklist

1. Otets-Nebo,Mat’-Zemlya 3:56
2. Voiny Arkony 3:31
3. Maslenitsa 3:24
4. Veter 3:28