Album Review: Patriarkh - ПРОРОК ИЛИЯ
Reviewed by Dan Barnes
It’s not even reached the Feast of Epiphany and the first albums of the year are arriving. First up for me is Patriarkh’s ПРОРОК ИЛИЯ, (or Prophet Elijah, which is the title I’ll using from hereon). And if Patriarkh is not a name you’re familiar with, know that this is the re-emergence of the band formerly known as Batushka, the one that was led by vocalist Bartek Krysiuk and issued the Hospodi album back in 2019.
Multi-instrumentalist Krzysztof Drabikowski, founder of the original band, and recruiter of Krysiuk in 2015 for the debut album, Litourgiya, the same year, released his own music in 2019, Panihida, resulting in something of a bitter tiff between the two for the legal right to use the name.
As you may infer, Drabilkowski won the battle in June 2024, prohibiting Krysiuk from using Batushka without express permission. So was born Patriarkh, a new band with an established fan-base, and the chance to lay down a marker for the new year.
Divided into eight songs - or movements might be a better description – each named after the city build by Elijah’s follows, in Latin, Wierszalin, and numbered 1 to 8; alternate titles are given in Cyrillic as ВЕРШАЛИН, but I’ll keep with just the numbers for this review.
Rather than being a Biblical prophet, the Elijah of this tale was an illiterate Belarussian peasant, born Eliasz Klimowicz and active in the 1930s and 1940s, who was proclaimed divine by his followers.
To tell his story, Partiarkh have utilised all manner of instrumentation to lend the album an authentic pastoral feel. Alongside the usual guitars and drums, Prophet Elijah features the use of tagelharpa, mandolin, mandocello, hurdy gurdy and stringed dulcimer throughout; a symphonic orchestra and choirs were brought in to add an authentic feel to the songs, ranging across the scope of Orthodox and liturgical folk melodies.
One starts things with the scratching of a nib on paper and a low choral chant. It’s joined by an ominous vocal before running into Two, which uses those ancient embellishments to fine affect, giving everything an ancient, medieval atmosphere. You can almost feel the wind blowing through stoney castle corridors, candlelight flickering in the darkness.
Six is a dialogue between male and female vocals, stringed instruments reaching back into the past in accompaniment.
Don’t be swayed into thinking this is an album of Gregorian chants, as Patriarkh never forget their Black Metal roots. Among Two’s arcane accoutrements are black metal screams; Three finds good use of occasional raw vocals amid its mellow mournfulness and the epic conclusion of Eight incorporates vast and ominous riffs alongside its bombastic layering.
The tracks that most heavily lean into the black metal vibes are the powerful drives and intrusive inclusion of electronic instruments on Four, the guitars grind and are set low in the mix, the tortured vocals making an interesting dichotomy between those and the light female vocals of the opening bars.
Whereas Five is a fast and rampant, and as aggressive as any corpse-painted horde could match. Raw-throated and evil, it’s an amalgam of the old and new, balanced in a way so as not to feel disjointed.
The personnel involved have all bought into the concept and ЛЕХ’s drums provide a solid, but protean foundation for МОНАХ ТАРЛАХАН, МОНАХ БОРУТА and АРХАНГЕЛ МИХАИЛ’s guitars. The stylistics and vocals come courtesy of ХИАЦЫНТОС ЯЦА and ЯЗЫЧНИК’s choral and ВАРФОЛОМИЕЙ more metallic vocals.
Patriarkh are wasting no time in the new year and will be hitting the ground running with an album launch show in Łódź, accompanied by a symphonic orchestra and male choir; with a further Polish dates pencilled in across the Spring.
With litigation behind them, here’s hoping both parties can get back to doing what they clearly do best: making interesting music.
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