Blood & Sand are a Russian neo-folk band, and very little information about them in English seems to be available. Which is a shame, because this album is just great. Bardo contains 11 tracks of soulful, passionate dark folk, with song titles in English, but all lyrics and vocals in Russian – some translations would have been nice. No musicians’ credits are given, so I don’t even know how many members Blood & Sand have. The music is dominated by violin and acoustic guitar, there’s some flute, and there are both male and female vocals, so it’s possible that Blood & Sand are a duo. Drums and electronic percussion are audible here and there, but they’re not a very prominent part of the mix, and bass and keyboards are sparingly used.

Bardo’s songs are very much in the neo-folk ballad style dominated by German bands such as Forseti and Sonne Hagal, although I was also often reminded of the mighty Sol Invictus, and the Hungarian band The Moon And The Nightspirit. Quiet and understated, yet performing with subtle power and confidence, Blood & Sand effectively evoke moods of nostalgia, wistfulness and melancholy. It isn’t necessary to understand the language to get the feeling, and the deceptively simple arrangements do a good job of delivering the emotional payload of the songs to the listener. The enigmatically titled duet ‘25’ has a fuller sound than most, with drums, cymbals and handclap percussion effects punctuating the swelling orchestral background, and the following track ‘Collapse’ employs wordless female chanting and orchestral strings in a Dead Can Dance style. I prefer the sparser, folkier tracks, and fortunately the album returns to this mode with ‘Ideal’, which is one of my favourites. The album closes with ‘Sunset’, which is structured around a piano melody, with violin accompaniment and soft acoustic guitar. There’s also a bonus track, an alternative version of the second track ‘You Search’, with female vocals.

Let me tell you a little story. My girlfriend is well used to hearing all kinds of music when she comes to see me. Some of it she likes, some of it she hates, and some of it she’s pretty indifferent to. But the other night when she came round, I was playing this album, and after a few minutes she said, ‘Who is this and where can I get a copy?’ The Bunkier website and MySpace page have sample tracks to help you decide whether you agree with my girlfriend. I can’t stop listening to this one, personally. I’d love to hear more from this band, though I did hear that they’ve disbanded already, and Bardo is just going to be a one-off. Pity.

Bardo is presented in an oversize booklet with nice black and white artwork, and it’s a limited edition of 350 copies.

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