Kariti
Covered Mirrors

Covered Mirrors is the debut of карити (kariti) - ('mourn the dead' in church Slavonic, an antique Slavic liturgical language) - a Russian-born artist based in Italy and represents a cathartic peregrination through bereavement. A collection of 8 intimate mostly stripped down mourning folk songs with crisp fingerstyle guitar and eerie vocal harmonies. Evocative lyrics in English and Russian explore various facets of death and parting. I stole that first stuff from the press material as I found it difficult to think of clever things to write about Kariti, but perhaps it is in the times with songs that mourn the dead considering the state of things at the moment – although she knew nothing of that when this album was recorded.

Dark folk, something like that, not really in the hard rocking style that albums we usually focus on here at Hallowed, but who doesn’t like some variation? The songs are atmospheric, I would call them dirges as that is kind of what it is. Slow and downbeat songs, I don’t really know about the evocative lyrics as I cannot really focus on the songs when there are other sounds around like the smattering of keys on the keyboard, the radiators, the fans in the ventilation and other sounds that you have in the house, they overpower this album. So, don’t look for anything engulfing and inspiring, the vocals aren’t that eerie though.

I don’t see why you would make this kind of music; I think music should be uplifting and give you positive emotions, but this is more like something that is looking to end my will to live. Leave the dirges and lamentations to funerals, I think this album offers some good atmosphere but in general it is so boring that any household task would be better. There is probably a market for this kind of stuff, there are lots of people who like folk music, and that crowd might be drawn towards stuff like this as well. To me, however it is more like a form of torture; after listening to this for an hour you will be ready to confess to anything and be sentenced to death just to get out of it.

"This record will likely please the ears of those who enjoy the music of Chelsea Wolfe, Marissa Nadler, Emma Ruth Rundle and A.A. Williams, among other dark/noir folk artists" says the press sheet, so let’s give them the benefit of the doubt while I play anything else in my music player and feel the will to live slowly grow from dangerously low levels.

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