Dragunov - Arkhipov

By Justin C. Just a little over three years have passed since French post-metal duo Dragunov gave us Korolev, a concept album about the Soviet Union’s space program. They’re back now with another gem, Arkhipov, this time focusing on a specific and frankly terrifying incident that occurred during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

By Justin C.


Just a little over three years have passed since French post-metal duo Dragunov gave us Korolev, a concept album about the Soviet Union’s space program. They’re back now with another gem, Arkhipov, this time focusing on a specific and frankly terrifying incident that occurred during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The album takes its title from Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov, a Soviet naval officer. In October of 1962, he was a commodore in command of a flotilla of Russian submarines near Cuba. He was personally on board a sub named B-59. The U.S. Navy located B-59 and began dropping depth charges in an attempt to force the sub to surface. The captain and political officer both agreed to launch a nuclear torpedo. However, Commodore Arkhipov also had to agree to the launch, and he refused. If they had launched, it's entirely possible we wouldn’t be here to discuss metal or much of anything at all, except perhaps how to avoid irradiated super-mutants that would undoubtedly be hunting humanity’s few survivors.

It’s an incredible story that I personally hadn’t heard before, and once again, Dragunov captures the intensity of the situation with just guitars and drums. The band is still instrumental, so except for a few scratchy sound samples, the story is told without a sung, growled, or spoken word. The slow build of “B-59”, featuring a simple, eerie guitar line that eventually builds to heavier riffs with discordant notes punctuating on top, is as good a musical recreation of what that argument aboard the sub must have been like. Similarly, “Keldysh” includes quiet pings that will be familiar to anyone who’s watched a TV show or movie with a submarine using sonar. The sonar is joined by alarms, what sounds like Morse code, and a muscular riff with lockstep percussion.

Even if you don’t care much about Soviet history, Dragunov should appeal to anyone who likes powerful, memorable riffs. They’re not noodly or overly technical, but they’re always head-bangingly good, whether they’re taking a slow Sabbath-esque approach or ripping along like a freight train. I’ve said it in previous reviews, but the fact that just two people are making this incredible noise is beyond impressive. Instrumental metal is often hit-or-miss because we’re so used to having the vocal component. A less competent band would write songs that probably should have vocals but just don’t, but Dragunov is back to show us, once again, that there’s a right way to write compelling, heavy instrumental music. And the right way is their way.

Dragunov - Korolev

By Justin C. Dragunov, the self-described "Parisian Soviet-Instrumental-Post-Metal duo," released a concept album mostly by accident their last time around. Their EP 637 consisted only of songs that were 6 minutes and 37

By Justin C.


Dragunov, the self-described "Parisian Soviet-Instrumental-Post-Metal duo," released a concept album mostly by accident their last time around. Their EP 637 consisted only of songs that were 6 minutes and 37 seconds long. They noticed the first few songs were all very close in length, and they ran with it. This time around, though, the band has gone a bit higher in concept. Korolev is a tour of Russia's aeronautic history, particularly some of its grimmer parts.

The album title itself comes from Sergei Korolev, the man who became the Chief Architect of the Soviet Union's space program, in spite of the fact that he had been imprisoned, tortured, and sentenced to death as a young man. And the album starts on a bleak note, with an opening song named after the crash coordinates of a Korean passenger airliner that was shot down by a Russian fighter in 1983 ("46°34'N 141°17'E"). From there, we get not one, but two dead cosmonauts in "Kosmonavt" and "24IV67," the latter of which is the somewhat-infamous incident of Vladimir Komarov, the cosmonaut who burned up on re-entry while allegedly cursing his superiors for sending him to die in a shoddily constructed space vehicle. (You can see the ghastly end results in the album art for Leucosis's Pulling Down the Sky.

Given the subject matter, you'd expect the music to be a bit on the melancholy side, and it often is, mixed in with equal parts anger and ominous atmosphere. "Kosmonavt" starts with some almost-gentle, chiming riffing, accompanied by radio transmissions from an obviously distressed source. You don't have to speak Russian to get the general gist, and the music builds in tension with the recordings while staying mournful at the same time. "24IV67" is probably the most disorienting song on the album, musically, featuring sound effects and more radio transmissions deep in the mix, accompanied by stabbing guitar chords. The song coalesces toward the end, but it ultimately comes to an abrupt ending, much like Komarov's space flight.

But it's not all dead cosmonauts and gloom. "Semïorka," named after a Russian ICBM that was ultimately repurposed for space flight, is a barn-burner of a tune with an excellent call-and-response riff that alternates in high and low registers. It evolves and mutates through the song, using the classic songwriting technique of stating a theme and then playing variations. "Bella i Strelka" refers to two Russian dogs who were sent into space and returned unharmed. The song is one of the more varied in construction on the album, including some bluesy bends that put me in mind of Soundgarden channeling Black Sabbath. Fast and slow parts mix, but without losing a sense of forward momentum. Although we know the dogs had a happy ending, the full range of mood is hard to pin down, which I think makes the song all the more compelling.

As on 637, Dragunov continues to play to their strengths on Korolev. They make a hell of a racket for just two people, but the compositions stay fresh, and appropriate portion control is observed--the whole album is only 34 minutes long, so there isn't a bit of extra fluff to be found here. It's surprising how much some instrumental metal songs suffer from a lack of screaming/growling, but that's not the case here. Sure, they could have added lyrics to make explicit the history I've described, but as I've said before, one of music's best qualities is the ability to express emotions that aren't so easily put into words. Dragunov dispenses with the words, but they tell a compelling story just the same.

Dragunov - 637

By Justin C. Paris-based duo Dragunov has put out an excellent instrumental EP called 637. The longest song on the EP is 6:37, and the shortest song on the EP is also 6:37. Keen students of mathematics will have figured out

By Justin C.


Paris-based duo Dragunov has put out an excellent instrumental EP called 637. The longest song on the EP is 6:37, and the shortest song on the EP is also 6:37. Keen students of mathematics will have figured out by this point that ALL five tracks are exactly 6:37 long. Tristan, the drummer, explained to me that they hadn't intended to make this a 6:37-concept album, but when the first couple of songs ended up the same length, they decided to go for it. I didn't even notice it at first, which is a little embarrassing, but on the other hand, it's a good thing from a musical perspective. If I'm not having moments of "This song is tooooo loooooong" or "I wish they'd explored this idea more", then I know the music is in that sweet spot of holding my interest completely.

The band self-describes their music as "garage post-metal", which I think is pretty apt. It has the kind of dissonant riffing and wide dynamics you might expect from post-metal, but the guitar sound is dirty and crunchy, and they're not afraid to go for simple-but-effective riffing, as demonstrated in the beginning of the second track, "Adin". "Adin" also demonstrates how effective the musical basics can be when done right. A sample in the middle of the song is accompanied by sustained guitar chords and a pulsing drum beat that quiets and swells. A lot of bands in the post-metal world rely on a simpler formula of quiet-LOUD-quiet-LOUD to break up the music, but it's easy to forget how much a subtle ebbing and flowing in dynamics can add to the musicality of a song.

The songs on this EP are always full of motion. The band doesn't bother with conventional song structure, but they don't devolve into chaos, either. The riffs are catchy, but the duo never grinds them into the ground with over-repetition. And their sense of dynamics is far from the only tool they use from the musical toolbox. Midway through "Tchetyre", we get a fantastic little alternating-note riff that eventually explodes into a more furious variation. Album closer "Piatt" has some great call-and-response sections, with a distant-sounding guitar leading off with an idea, followed by full-bore explosion based on the same idea. This all leads up to a fantastic, sawing riff that plays the EP out.

I haven't seen much mention of this band outside from a post from our brethren over at No Clean Singing, but 637 is a gem of instrumental goodness that deserves much wider recognition.