Hailing from the town of Końskie in south-central Poland, Zmarłyn are a quartet who deliver a rather nice line in experimental black metal. After exploring the Covid pandemic on their last album (2021’s Draga fala), the band continue their march forward with sophomore long player, Wielkie Zanikanie, a record that delves into the murky world of modern society and city life. Zmarłyn display a creativity is in perpetual motion and it marks them as leaders, not followers, and while many of their peers feel firmly rooted in time, this quartet are rolling towards a bright future.
Zmarłyn created quite a lot of consternation in the conservative world of Polish black metal when they introduced electronic elements into their sound. It was a risky move and one which alienated as many people as it enticed, yet in a case of fortune favouring the brave it really worked and put the band on a fast track out of the musical ghetto that can be black metal. Wielkie Zanikanie works because it finds an easy equilibrium between the antiquated and the modern and inhabits that sweet spot somewhere in between. It’s with keyboards that the album is introduced and they’re used exactly how keys should be used on a black metal album, namely to create a sense of place and time. It makes for a dark and discombobulating introduction, and one that instils a sense of unease in the listener, meaning that when the band kick in around the minute mark, they kick in hard. Therefore, ‘Miejsca’ kicks down genre divisions; this could quite easily be the beginnings of a darkwave, industrial or a progressive rock album. But even within the body of ‘Miejsca’ the band toy with boundaries, inserting clean vocals and quieter sections amongst the guttural growls and thunderous blastbeats, all of which add contrast and shade, and signpost what will come over the next 45-minutes. Wielkie Zanikanie is in constant evolution and that means it holds the listener’s attention effortlessly across the nine tracks.
Zmarłyn are a band who defy easy categorisation and only “progressive black metal” will really suffice and that’s mainly because of the prefix (i.e., “progressive”). There’s a crisp, clean production on this record that’s the complete antithesis to the raw, visceral sound that usually furnishes a black metal album, and while this might be a turn off for purists, it gives the album a crossover appeal that should extend the band’s reach beyond the confines of the genre. Likewise, the riffs contained within aren’t your prototypical blackened riffs; there’s a lot of space between the chords and helps the band circumnavigate the drone that usually infests BM albums. Finally, if proof were needed to the band’s desire for musical exploration then it can be found on tracks ‘Plamy I’ and ‘Plamy II’ on which guest musician Johny Yul pops up to add some saxophone to proceedings, making the most un-metal instrument sound metal.
In terms of invention, Zmarłyn remind me of a black metal version of Rush. There’s something about this album that reminds me of Caress Of Steel, and Wielkie Zanikanie suggests Zmarłyn are going to have a career as long and varied as Rush.
- Wielkie Zanikanie is released via Godz ov War Productions and is available now (from here).
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Track List:
- Miejsca
- Sny o Lataniu
- Idziemy w Mglę
- Ludzie Schronu (2034)
- Bunt Maszyn
- A Good Day
- Plamy I
- Plamy II
- Wielkie Zanikanie
