Russia has always been a bit of an oddity for me when it comes to metal with some pretty interesting things coming out of the world’s biggest country with acts like Arkveid and originally Kauan along with labels like Satanath Records occasionally surprising me. It’s been a little bit since Russia threw something intriguing at me with a bit of gusto, and tonight I was thrown something that I just couldn’t pass up. In the form of pagan-laced doom metal, Вѣдьма has made one hell of an entrance.

There’s no shortage of bands that bring pagan elements to black and folk metal to varying degrees, but I’ve never really seen it in doom metal. I’m not sure if it’s because people don’t think they’d go well together or no one wanted to try pulling it off, but Вѣдьма doesn’t belong to either of these groups and to say this one-woman act powered through like an absolute champion would be an understatement. A five-track slab sounds like a pretty solid starting point if you ask me, and stretching that out to cross over 40 minutes easily is a feat not many can execute well. Yet, just hearing the first track of “История отречения” shows us that this woman is not messing around for even a second with stellar guitar work, a grand sense of musicianship as everything falls into place almost perfectly, and the combination of a pagan feel with a doomy execution is the exact type of thing that I never knew I could eat right up. There are few times where an album that has a distinctly different sound can really grasp me, but there’s no question for me that “История отречения” has got me incredibly interested right from the start. It’s far from an immaculate display, but there’s no denying the sheer quality at work here.

This is one of those ambiguous projects that really doesn’t have much out there for us listeners to gather information about. All I can find about Вѣдьма is how it’s helmed by one fantastic woman and based in Russia, and somehow that lack of information helped bring out a special attitude for this debut. If Вѣдьма manages to harness everything that went into “История отречения” into the next record while then honing all of it, then we will be treated to something truly special. But as it stands, “История отречения” is an incredibly promising piece with a very flavorful personality to it that speaks true volumes and presents to us another brilliant musician we should definitely keep our eye on.

LISTEN to “История отречения” on Bandcamp here.