Batushka - Litourgiya review
Band: | Batushka |
Album: | Litourgiya |
Style: | Black metal |
Release date: | December 04, 2015 |
A review by: | ScreamingSteelUS |
01. Ектения I: Очищение
02. Ектения II: Благословение
03. Ектения III: Премудрость
04. Ектения IV: Милость
05. Ектения V: Святый вход
06. Ектения VI: Уповане
07. Ектения VII: Истина
08. Ектения VIII: Спасение
Religious music in the context of heavy metal does not have a very long history. In 1987, Anthrax invented it with their classic rap metal track “I’m The Man,” which married the traditional Jewish song “Hava Nagila” to heavy riffs and lyrics about bodily functions, and then the genre peaked in 2019 with Nanowar Of Steel’s “Valhallelujah”. In between, however, there was one recording that applied the concept in a more serious fashion: Litourgiya, Batushka’s 2015 debut album.
Formed in 2015 by multi-instrumentalist Krzysztof “Кристофор” Drabikowski, who realized that in some respects the divine is just as metal as the unholy, Batushka heralded their sound in a suitably awe-inspiring fashion. Onstage, the members adopted the mysterious raiment and iconography of the Orthodox Catholic Church; Litourgiya’s cover is painted in the style of an icon, the staple of Orthodox art, and the members garbed themselves in black habits and schemata that rendered them anonymous. The lyrics are written in Old Church Slavonic, the oldest Slavic literary language, which was proliferated by Saints Cyril and Methodius during their 9th-century missions in Eastern Europe; its role today could be compared to that of Latin in the Roman Catholic Church. The discussions in this Reddit thread suggest that the lyrics are, in fact, autotheistic in nature – they’re avowedly blasphemous, in any case – which makes Batushka not strictly the faithful worshipers they might seem, but I don’t understand Old Church Slavonic anyway, and neither do you. Likewise, while I haven’t found an explanation that seems to grasp the exact usage and nuance of the term, the word “batushka” itself can be summarized as a label or form of address pertaining to members of the priesthood in the Orthodox Church, which is a sufficient approximation for us to gather what the band’s fixation is.
The most noticeable trait that this liturgical mien imparts to the music is the deep, resonant chanting that constitutes most of the album’s vocal presence. This style of long, clean notes sung in a deep pitch is commonly practiced for the singing of hymns in religious services; vocalist Bartłomiej “Варфоломей” Krysiuk apparently perfected his technique by living and studying with actual monks, and his years of practice show in a graceful dominance that no Batushka imitator has yet attained. While Krysiuk still employs traditional black metal shrieks from time to time, usually during the most frenetic passages, Litourgiya’s most distinctive musical idiosyncrasy is this strong presence of undistorted intonations; the monastic chorus perfectly invokes the magisterial grandeur of the Church.
Due to the soft layers of sonorous singing, the seven- and eight-string guitars used by Drabikowski, and the unabashed implementation of recognizable bass lines, Litourgiya has a much more pronounced low end than the average black metal album (although that’s kind of like saying that Charles I is easily the most decapitated of all English monarchs). Drabikowski makes use of the extra latitude afforded by those strings (with “Ектения III: Премудрость” having an especially tasty riff), sometimes writing lower-octave accompaniments for the usual tremolo-picked black metal melodies, sometimes slowing into heavy, doomy chugs; the extra weight swinging around allows for some thunderous dynamics and deep grooves. Beyond these elements, the songwriting is not far from black metal tradition – fast, furious riffs, volleys of blastbeats and drum fills, malevolent minor-key progressions – albeit with more panache than the norm; the conceptual gravity infiltrates every song.
This album will be ten years old at the other end of this year – hard to believe because the legal drama over the band’s name has only just resolved, and yet it is already a relic of the distant past for that very reason. This Batushka will probably never exist again, and while Drabikowski and Krysiuk have both continued with their own incarnations, it is a very rare thing for black metal to feel so magnificent.
Rating breakdown
Performance: | 9 |
Songwriting: | 8 |
Originality: | 9 |
Production: | 8 |
![]() | Written on 23.01.2025 by I'm the reviewer, and that means my opinion is correct. |
Rating:
9.0
9.0
Rating: 9.0 |
During our decade, it seems that Poland is for black metal what Norway was in the 90s and France in the 00s. Hoodies have replaced corpse paint and with bands such as Mgła, Cultes Des Ghoules, Furia and now Batushka, this eastern European country is out to become the leader of the pack for the extreme genre. Litourgiya is hands down the best debut of 2015 and is battling with Mgła's Exercises In Futility for the title of black metal album of the year. And it probably beats it. Read more ›› |
Comments
Comments: 3
Visited by: 37 users
RaduP CertifiedHipster Staff |
ScreamingSteelUS Editor-in-Chief Admin |
nikarg Staff |
Hits total: 693 | This month: 159