Old school but make it original: With his long-awaited third album Morning Star, Këkht Aräkh cements his status as one of the most exciting artists in today’s black metal scene.
Words: Christina Wenig
Këkht Aräkh’s music is, at its core, hardly revolutionary – fans of Second Wave black metal will feel a distinct sense of nostalgia and familiarity in these songs. But there is something about the clash of traditional, authentic old school sounds and aesthetics with modern internet culture that is deeply intriguing – and works on a very primal, fundamental level.
Këkht Aräkh, the one-person studio project of Ukrainian musician Dmitry Marchenko a.k.a. Crying Orc, entered the scene in 2018 with his demo Through The Branches To Eternity; one year later, his debut album Night & Love followed. And while this record already garnered a fair bit of attention, it wasn’t until the release of his sophomore album Pale Swordsman in 2021 that Këkht Aräkh went viral in the metal scene and beyond, transforming from musician to beloved meme thanks to the iconic cover artwork with its theatrical sad-boi energy.
Here to stay
Trends like that have come and gone, but Këkht Aräkh was never going to be just a short viral moment – because beyond his singular image, he delivered some outstanding music. Channeling the essence of Second Wave greats like Emperor, he summons up the spirit of the 90s and cloaks it in a unique guise of gloom and wistfulness.
By now, Dmitry has practically become his own creation, the Pale Swordsman – a melancholic, defeated warrior wandering through the darkness; a shadow haunting the ruins of his own soul. And he continues his desperate quest on his latest album, Morning Star. While his previous releases leaned on keys and synths to create an eerie ambiance contrasting the harshness, the new songs prominently feature (acoustic) guitars and a strong folk vibe. Take Lament, for example – a song sounding like early Ulver discovered trap metal –, the quasi-interlude Land av evig natt I, the string-accompanied title track or Genom sorgen with its organ backdrop.
These folk elements, guitar picking, layered vocals and a mix that prominently features bass and lead guitar add melody and harmony without falling into the traps of modern-day cheesiness or chumming up; they don’t obscure the raw nature of this music. On the contrary, Morning Star embraces simplicity and tradition even more tightly than before – an evolution illustrated in the newly recorded album version of the 2024 single Drömsång. Originally a black metal piano ballad, the new interpretation is shorter, lower and even more reduced, having been stripped of all key sounds.
Blasts from the past
It’s not the only time Dmitry has revisited his past for this new album: Many of the songs are based on drafts that date back to the earliest days of the project, and the Pale Swordsman still haunts their sounds and stories. As the album opener, the rerecorded 2023 single Wänderer, declares: “Still wandering in the night, Pale Swordsman.” It’s a testament to a bigger concept; an ongoing theme of restlessness, not belonging and searching for a place to call home.
As fantastical and enchanted as these dark tales may seem: They’re rooted in real life. Having moved from Ukraine to Poland to Vienna and finally to Berlin, Dmitry spent recent years seeking the comfort of a home (“It’s cold like London in December, wherever I go, I feel the same”, Three winters away). Recorded between Stockholm and his current residence, Berlin, the theme of alienness and unrest is embedded in these nocturnal elegies – the titular Morning Star that keeps reappearing in the lyrics (most prominently in the repeating sample “as the Morning Star crowns the night”) serving as a beacon of hope and relief during the dark night of the soul.
Sweden calling
Building on his longtime admiration for Sweden, his partially Swedish lyrics and the Northern folk elements on his album, having Morning Star take shape in Stockholm seems only logical. Here, musical collaborators VS--55 (who Këkht Aräkh recently released the experimental EP Tårar blir till blod with), Varg2™ and Spöke helped carve out the sound design of his third album. Perhaps most importantly, the raw and the primitive have been enhanced by running the original digital recordings through a Portastudio tape recorder and defiling all that is clean and polished in the process.
It’s no coincidence that Sweden is also home to some of the biggest names in cloud rap, including Yung Lean and Drain Gang. Këkht Aräkh is obviously sharing lo-fi and DIY values, a sense of melancholy, darkness and experimentation as well as Y2K aesthetics with the hip hop subgenre – just check out the music videos that have earned him the nicknames “Yung Aräkh” and “Lil Aräkh” or the eerie hums and whispers between the growls and snarls of this album (and the pretty iconic “Egh! I said EGH!”). Dmitry has leaned in even further into fusing these worlds by engaging Swedish cloud rap superstar Bladee for a guest part in the surprisingly catchy song Eternal martyr – the ultimate proof that this crossover makes perfect sense.
While the project Këkht Aräkh lives on the internet and is unmistakably a product of its culture, the parallels to the Second Wave are striking. The grainy photos and scruffy-looking VCR-style music videos look like Darkthrone material from the 90s, only that Dmitry might not be rummaging the Norwegian forests but the streets of Japan and waving around a bottle of cola instead of medieval weapons while performing in front of the camera. The musician zooms in closer on a very specific time and feel in metal history and carries it into the present without being bothered by the rules of what is “trve” or “kvlt”. Shaped by a genuine desire for authenticity rather than bowing to conformity, Morning Star adds a desperately needed fresh facet to the often-repetitious and deadlocked old school black metal realm.
Now, go wander with the Pale Swordsman!
