ALBUM REVIEW: Zabobony – Popiół

Despite Zabobony being the band’s debut record, POPIÓŁ‘s music was written and ready to record years ago. To be specific, two decades ago. When Polish blackened death metallers THY WORSHIPER were working on their very first recordings, members of the band came up with the music that would eventually feature on this record, but, for whatever reason, it never saw the light of day. Both current and former members of the band have come together as POPIÓŁ to finally help this music be heard, and it’s great that they did as Zabobony is an excellent blend of black metal and folk music, with some notable progressive flourishes, which all make this an interesting and brilliant debut record.

Wybiło is an epic, folky piece of black metal. The clash between styles works incredibly well, with sublime, acoustic guitars complementing melodic, melancholic lead guitar passages really well. The vocals, although good, carve through the mix a little too much, and distract the listener from the music. They range from sonorous clean parts to harsh, snarling ones, both of which sound great. Nonetheless, this is a small issue, and the music is, overall, very well done. The second half of the song picks up the pace and intensity, making the song sound even more bombastic and powerful than it did initially. The folk and black metal elements both work well together, and neither style takes over the sound, instead shifting seamlessly from one to the other.

Meanwhile,  Gdy Słońce Zgaśnie takes a much different approach, opting from a noticeably more ferocious feel with an overarching, hypnotic edge that does a great job of drawing the listener in right off the bat. There’s still plenty of acoustic guitar motifs thrown into the music, adding a palpable atmosphere at various points, providing great breaks between this style and the far more speed driven, monstrous black metal sections. There’s a plethora of spoken word parts peppered throughout this song too, which gives it a more grandiose and dramatic feel. With Gdy Słońce Zgaśnie, POPIÓŁ raise the songwriting and musical bar to much loftier heights. Wilcze Jagody leads on from Gdy Słońce Zgaśnie, and acts as a brief instrumental interlude. It’s a great piece of music, driven by a sparse, minimalist acoustic guitar and plenty of heavily distorted guitar and bass lines that make the track sound even more ominous and bombastic. It quickly gathers pace, and momentum, and gradually builds to a brilliant climactic motif.

Ojcze Nienasz, with its sonorous, chanted vocals and dense, sludgy bass hooks, is an epic and sprawling piece of music that slowly builds as the song progresses, with the guitars and drums providing much of the intensity. It’s a bleak, haunting piece of music with a solid, visceral edge to it that works incredibly well at striking a balance between melancholic and vicious moments really well. The acoustic guitars make another appearance on this track, helping to bridge the first and second halves of the song with a brief, glorious interlude. The tracks second half maintains much more the morose feeling of the first half, and adds even more urgency and ferocity to the underlying aggression of this song to help and create a powerful, emotive statement in the songs climactic moments.

Chmury, by contrast, is a full throttle aural assault that races out of the speakers straight away. This is misleading, as POPIÓŁ quickly revert to a more folk music orientated approach, with primal drumming patterns, rich, booming vocals and excellent guitar lines that demand the listener’s attention. The song jumps between the more measured, folk moments and those that are more palpable and rabid throughout, even peppering some progressive time changes into the music to help to provide it with even more musical depth and upper tier musicianship. Each part of this song varies from the previous passage slightly, packing new riffs into the song every couple of minutes to make this monolithic, near ten minute offering interesting from start to finish. It’s a song that is, in equal parts, beautiful and fierce, and captures the range of the bands eclectic sound extremely well.

Following, A Kysz begins with a thick, distorted bass riff with some sparse, tight guitars and soaring vocals coming into the play very early on. Another relatively brief song, rather than go for a full on, feral approach POPIÓŁ take this opportunity to create a powerful and atmospheric track, with no discernible black metal influences in the song, focusing solely on the acoustic aspects of their sound. A Kysz comes as a welcome break from the more macabre and sorrowful side of the record, and sets the listener up for the final two songs perfectly. Umarli, Zabobony‘s penultimate track, is another lengthy, grandiose piece of music that manages to make the most of its extended running time by filling every moment with a variety of different hooks, tones and styles. Showcasing a far more robust and impressive side to POPIÓŁ, Umarli makes use of much denser guitars and bass, more forceful, thunderous drumming patterns and noticeably darker vocals, often eschewing the booming, clean singing for harsher, more traditional black metal rasps. It’s a grand and powerful climactic statement, which proves to be one of the records key musical zeniths.

Czerń closes Zabobony on a high note. Once again, the bass on here sounds amazing, with plenty of reverb added to give it a borderline psychedelic edge which works really well. The guitars and vocals follow in a similar vein, making this a very hypnotic and engrossing song, gradually gaining momentum as it progresses. The guitars don’t feature as prominently as on many of the earlier tracks, but when they are utilised, they add emphasis to certain points on the track, which makes them stand out in the mix all the more. Interestingly, there are no percussive sections either, with the song being driven solely by vocals, bass and guitar, another element that makes this track so unique on this album, and allows the other instruments to carry the song to its conclusion. It’s an impressive and intriguing way to bring this record to a close, but it nonetheless works incredibly well and leaves the listener satisfied.

Zobobony is an incredibly diverse and powerful album from the first note to the very last. It’s clear that POPIÓŁ have plenty of musical and songwriting talent, and their willingness to experiment with different sounds and styles makes their music as different and memorable as possible. There’s plenty of folk elements in here that at times make this reminiscent of bands like WODENSTHRONE or even AGALLOCH, but to make a comparison between these bands and POPIÓŁ is a little unfair and grossly misleading. The slower, melancholic tinges that are evident throughout this record are more evocative of doom metal, and the vocals are clearly not rooted in the sort of hellish croaks or bestial howls that is indicative of black metal. There’s plenty of dark, ethereal tones in the music that give Zabobony a distinct, atmospheric bent, and it’s clear from the use of certain, reverb drenched tones that are used throughout the album that this is meant to be more of an atmospheric affair than an aggressive one. If you like extreme metal with a bleak and ambient side, then the debut from POPIÓŁ cannot be recommended enough. With any luck, we won’t have to wait two more decades for a follow-up.

Rating: 9/10

Zabobony is out now via Godz Ov War Records.

Like POPIÓŁ on Facebook.