From Bandcamp, "DUCHNA" is a solo immersion into the crushing intersections of post-metal, doom, and shoegaze. Built on a foundation of monumental guitar riffs and expansive space reverbs, the project explores the weight of sound through a lens of atmospheric isolation." The album has nine songs, and "Shades of Lust" is first. It enters like someone beginning to stir from a dream…slow, and somewhat cloudy. There is weight in the song, but it doesn't envelope everything. The focus seems to be on developing atmosphere, and it's plenty dark. The title track is next, and it's divided into three parts. The first part enters again ethereally, but a vocal scream breaks the silence and the weighted riff that follows is akin to a giant stomping his oversized feet into the earth. It ends abruptly.

Part two picks back up more ambient and atmospheric tones. The vocals are smooth and solemn until they rise with pain and anger, and the song has a marked emotional feeling to it, as if there is a sad tale to tell. Part three also enters with ambiance, and it's almost as if you are standing alone in a great hall that was just unearthed and is completely vacant. Your voice echoes off the walls, and you have this grandiose sense of what you uncovered. "Ceiling of Grief" has firmer tones that are still quite majestic…even hypnotic at times. The clean vocals are low in the register, instilling this sense of doom within the grief. The vocals rise when he says "I am not OK," and this is a very emotional sound.

"A Dusty Mermaid" features clean, slow moving guitar chords that segue into a deeper and stronger guitar rhythms with meaty bass notes rounding out the sound. It just sounds cavernous, like there is no bottom to be found anywhere. "Static Hypnosis" is aptly titled. It's a blank, dissociative feeling, where you are stunned into stillness. Transitioning from bar to bar, the song continues to grow like a sickness that is oddly charming at the same time. "The Dryest Flood" is another oxymoron, and the album seems to revel in these contrasts. Deep, dark rhythms combine with thick bass notes to create a palate that is as wondrous as it is mysterious. "Duchna" closes the album, and I'm afraid it leaves more questions than answers, but it's a hot ball of emotion.

As the album continued to move, I felt worse and worse, sort of like a cumulative effect of piling one burden on top of another, trying to break me. That's how powerful the emotional experience was. It's also an album buried in deep mystery, and if you take the plunge, you never know what you might unearth…what secrets might be revealed.