Rating: 9.5/10
Release: 30 August 2024
Label: Independent / Bandcamp

The Russian band Alkonost is back with a new album, the tenth, called “Дар саламандры”, that can be translated in “Salamander’s Gift”. It has nine new songs, all dedicated to the element of fire, and can be considered as a new turn in the band’s history and sound.
Listening to the album you have the feeling of being around the fire, dancing, performing
ancients rites. All of that while listening to legends about how people gained power and
knowledge by calling fire to help them, looking in the fire spirits’ world.
The music is beautiful – as the lyrics and the vocals – and it can make us listeners imagine “the trembling birth of a spark, the dark cold of loneliness and the all-consuming triumph of the thunderstorm of primordial days”, as the band write in their Bandcamp profile. The vocals are diverse, like the fire itself, and it seems taking forms from both, the fury of the flame and the “fragile ringing of a weightless, delicate ray of light from a distant lighthouse amidst the hopelessness of the icy night”.
The lyrics are about the various faces of the fire and about the versatility (and often ambiguity) of its various manifestations. This lyrics offer to reflect on how in life the fire energy manifest itself in every aspects of people’s life, from characters to actions and relationships, and these lyrics show us what can be achieved if we make this indomitable force serve us. That’s because fire is associated with change and creation, it’s wild and unbridled and it helps whoever knows how to use it wisely, helping to change circumstances and achieve his goals.

My favorite tracks are “Оберег”, “Солнце” and “Маяк”.

Tracklist

1. Iskra 03:47 l
2. Razozhgi ogon’ 05:06
3. Salamandra 04:30
4. Obereg 05:00
5. Solntse 05:39
6. Severnoye siyaniye
7. 22 7. Molniya 04:11
8. Rassvet 04:20
9. Mayak 05:00