I just noticed their identities got added to their MA page, but I hadn't seen this mentioned anywhere yet. I guess it was just a matter of time given they've been playing more shows. I was convinced there would be at least one Behemoth member in there, so it's kind of refreshing that it's essentially minor players in the Polish scene that were able to make such a big splash.

Anyway, they're about to play the US for the first time but I unfortunately had to sell my ticket to the Chicago show. Really excited for people to see them, and hopefully this gives them some momentum for their upcoming Metal Blade release. Their debut is something that deserved all the hype and more, it's a pretty unique, crazy heavy sound and I still listen to it regularly.

I got hooked on these guys the first time I heard Litourgiya. The album works great as a unit while still maintaining a good variety, between the slower/subtle and more melodic parts, the chanting, and the full-blown black metal aspects complete with blasting and lots of tremolo picking.

This is coming from someone who didn't listen to much metal from '14-early'18, but I hadn't heard anything like it the first time I gave it a spin. I immediately told all my brothers to check it out when they had a moment and they were quick to become fans themselves. i definitely can't wait to hear more output from these guys. I had no idea that they were signed to Metal Blade, but that's good for them. Hopefully Slagel and Co. give them the love they deserve.

I was obsessed with their album when I got the reissue and still listen to it very frequently. Am going to the Aug. 15 NYC show and am super stoked for it.

Their full length was alright, but not long after i read somewhere they were members of Hermh(guess it was just the main guy after double checking) and one of them ran Witching Hour Productions, which has a great reputation..lol.

I'll be in Chicago for both shows. I love when bands go all out with sound and presentation. With them being picked up by a bigger label and playing more shows I think we can start counting down until there's backlash from the contrarian part of the underground against them.

In theory I really like this band. Cool concept, cool songs, great music. I love the chants. But basically the harsh vocals are something of a dealbreaker for me...they just sound so decidedly modern and commercial that it really gets in the way. I haven't listened to that guy's other bands, so I dunno if he uses a different technique elsewhere, but basically I just wish he either stuck to cleans, used a more old school style for the harsh vocals, or they got another guy to do the harsh vocals instead of him. Do that, and this band would be pretty great I think.

EH?!

I am a huge fan of the album and will be seeing them on their US tour... Admittedly, I found out about this band later so I missed the whole Witching Hour Productions fiasco. Does anyone have a link or a short version of what happened there?

Either way, I love the album. The transitions throughout are great. I understand where Batman is coming from, the production is rather modern on the vocals. I saw another board bitching about how this band sold out when they signed to Metal Blade - but I always took them as “Ghost if they were an extreme band”... Looking forward to seeing their live show!

No fucken idea what you guys are talking about. Just standard BM vocals to my ears. Standard as in Gorgorothish. A ridiculous criticism if I ever saw one.

Love the album and look forward to the show tonight in NYC.

The album is alright, it has trouble holding my interest past track 4.

Watched them live some 4 months ago.

It was a very nice show overall, Mortuus was good in support although Pestkraft sucked, well, their drummer sucked to be more accurate.

I like their work, it sounds different which is always a bonus.

I've eard that witching hours issue mentioned somewhere but couldn't care any less.

You don't care that the main guy has ripped people off and sent literal trash to people that order from him? Either way, band was fun for about one listen then got old.

Why should I? He did nothing to me. I feel sorry for those that got ripped but don't let that interfere with me liking or disliking the music.

2 completely separate things.

I have my Batushka album home, and the money I paid to watch them live served it's purpose.

If he rips people off then I won't buy stuff from him. That's his problem in losing business not mine.

I can totally understand not digging the vocals, they are a bit monotonous. The album is pretty average too if you take away the chants. I get why people seem to like them but the album is not my cup of tea, too safe and uninteresting in my opinion. The concept is rather silly too, I'm not even sure they understand most of the stuff they sing. To sum up, if I wanted to listen to some overproduced radio friendly/easy listening/light extreme metal I'd go with Behemoth even though I'm not usually in the mood for this kind of stuff.

Yeah I think this is one of the situations where seperating the art from the artist is not that hard lol

Batushka's album was pretty good, although it took a bit to grow on me as I found it kinda by the numbers until I got to be more familiar with it. Kind of anti climactic to see who's in the band considered as they were sold as having big players in the scene, but whatever.

regarding their schtick, I think it's an interesting inversion of the orthodox occult stuff that is pretty much completely played out at this point. Although as far as "christian" black metal goes, I think I like Reverorum ib Malacht better.

They aren’t identifying as christian from what I gather.

Botashka [sic] are basically the melodic death metal version of Ghost. Nobody would care about this band without the elaborate gimmick and the ripped-off Russian Orthodox chants. At least Ghost has some catchy tunes, but this band is nothing but atmosphere, a cool occult-as-fukk wallpaper to drape the background of your kvlt die-hard vinyl collection.

Edgy as fuk dude

I really don’t understand why this band has so much hate. The album is good... The gimmick is interesting. Granted, some have had poor dealings with Witching Hour (that I don’t fully know the scope of). But, the band is solid.

Also, anyone who believes Batushka or Behemoth is “radio friendly” clearly lives in an underground bubble and has no concept of what is played on the radio.

Fun listen at first, but gets old fast, and really doesn't hold up well after repeated listens. Not even sure if I still have the cd around anymore or if I gave it away at some point.

Most albums tend to get worse when you start getting rid of integral elements...

Let's rephrase it: it's just a very bland black metal album played over random orthodox chants that were stolen. The black metal element isn't interesting at all, which is why a lot of people don't like Batushka. Ideally this would be great black metal + great orthodox chanting.



I didn't say "entry level" because I didn't want to offend anyone but if that's what it takes for you to understand what I meant then I'll reprase that too: if I wanted to listen to some overproduced entry level extreme metal I'd go with Behemoth. Do I also have to explain the radio is a bit different in every country? There's plently of countries where you can actually listen to metal on the radio.

In what country is Behemoth played on the radio then? Do tell. Also, do you consider Nile, Melechesh, Belphegor and Morbid Angel to be entry level, easy listening, radio metal?

The fact that a band's mere existence gets people this worked up will never cease to amuse me.

You could say this about literally every band in on the planet, so you're just trying to gaslight people into thinking your way. Every single show they are playing in the US this week has sold out, and they have one of the highest-ranked debuts in the history of the archives. It's fine if you don't like them, but trying to tell people they are much-maligned band just because you want them to be is disingenuous.

Haha yeah, this is madness. Sometimes the modern production and modern sounding harsh vocals are kinda less than ideal for me, but writing this band off as an extreme metal version of Ghost or radio friendly kiddie stuff is just bizarre. Reeks to me of that weird mindset that some people have where basically anything that becomes trendy must automatically be bad.

Denmark, for one. The radio show Sort Søndag ("Black Sunday") used to broadcast on the radio station DR P6 every Sunday evening. DR/Denmark's Radio is Denmark's version of the BBC, so it's not just some random little local radio show. For some reason it's now a podcast, but from its beginning in 2010 until 2017-ish it was a regular radio show. And yes, they've played Behemoth.

I find it interesting people are calling them that based on guessed lyrics. I mean they're costumes are covered in inverted crucifixes and skulls and one of their music videos has some grim reaper looking character beheading Jesus followed by a bunch of fungus looking shit growing out of Mary. Doesn't seem very Christian to me, but it doesn't stop some hilariously retarded reports coming in.

https://www.metal-archives.com/report/view/id/641735

Pretty much all over Europe. I live in a shitty country with no metal scene at all and I've heard Behemoth in a program they play on Mondays to Thursdays on the National Radio (Radio 3). I haven't been able to find the program but a kick search will show you they played Kataklysm and Dimmu Borgir too which aren't far from what Behemoth play nowadays. They post the programs online a few days later I think.

http://www.rtve.es/alacarta/audios/el-vuelo-del-fenix/

Melechesh are pretty melodic too, I would say they can be an entry level band the same way Behemoth are. Morbid Angel aren't as melodic though and Nile depends on the album, Ithyphallic is actually catchy and easy to listen for an extreme metal album. I remember Ithyphallic and Demigod got me interested in death metal a lot of years ago when they came out.

Come on guys, you can't be that naive. Behemoth and Batushka are the first bands kids who get tired of Slipknot listen to nowadays. Behemoth are the gateway to a lot of people listening more extreme metal, there's nothing wrong with that. I like The Satanist for a fact and I never said I hate Batushka so please stop with all this "the fact that a band's mere existence gets people this worked up will never cease to amuse me" nonesense.



Someone asked earlier in this thread "I really don’t understand why this band has so much hate" so there must be at least a few people who don't like them. That's not what I meant anyways since this was kind of an answer to those poople not understanding why somebody may dislike Batushka (and you know it since you just maliciously quoted me without context).

Their shows being sold out doesn't prove anything either, Deafheaven are liked by a lot of people and I'm sure they sold out a bunch of shows. That doesn't contradict the fact a lot of people hate them. Sunbather has a 61% here and if I said "there's a lot of people who don't like Deafheaven" nobody would claim I'm "trying to tell people they are much-maligned band just because I want them to be".

I get it, you like Batushka and it's ok but you can't really pretend everyone in this forum to love them unconditionally. That's the point of this forum, some people like a band, some people don't. Get over it.

pretty much the epitome of volatile, unsubstantiated, postmodern black metal. not trying to come off as a die hard, "trve" black metal guy here, but this band embodies a lot of what is wrong about contemporary black metal in my view. the pseudo-occult stagewear and ripped-off christian orthodox aesthetic elements seem to matter more than the actual quality of the music (which is absent here). add to this the debatable (re)release policy and the label's/main guy's rip-off antics (which was reminiscent even though not to the full degree of blake judd/AMM/the judas iscariot fiasco), and lo and behold, you have a big turd of dishonorable black metal, notwithstanding their commercial success. last but not least, the music sucks badly - although the concept is somewhat innovative in theory and potentially interesting.

Did listen to (2015) Batushka - Litourgiya and saw them live at 2017 Brutal Assault:


Not for me.

Why did you underline "Christian Orthodox?" There's not really a need to draw attention to it - they've been pretty blunt and open that they're aesthetic and album is based on Eastern Orthodox Christian hymns, tropes, themes, and rituals.


I really like the Batushka as mentioned above and can get why people don't like them, but it also seems like some people are holding it against them that they aren't "kvlt" or underground black metal enough. I can understand that being the reason that you personally don't care for them, but it doesn't seem like they intended to go in that direction. They clearly have a vision for the band as a whole and in my opinion, their music and stage shows align completely with that. So I guess you either buy into that vision or not and if you don't it won't speak to you (which I guess is kind of similar to Ghost...).

Mentioning that Batushka is the next step fot kids listening to Slipknot renders any other part of your argument null.

sorry if I didn't make that clear enough, I thought this was self-evident. I stressed that because christian belief and black metal in my book have always been and are to this day diametrically opposed in terms of spirituality/ideology/religion/etc. batoushka are a prime example of "anything goes BM", which is what I meant by volatile and postmodern. I'm not denying the historic relation between BM and christian aesthetics here, but it should work the way of mockery, inversion, defilement etc.
by the way, any band that places more importance on stagewear and aesthetics than on actual musical quality is doing it the wrong way. it's just that in batoushka's case, everything else I mentioned above comes on top of that additionally.

Bolt Thrower, Napalm Death and many more were featured on the BBC's Peel Sessions radio show. Are they radio friendly as well?

Begging the question much? I already mentioned the actual "Christian-ness" of this band was dubious at best, but saying that black metal has some sort of universal ideology just sounds like Euronymous worship.

Gimmick band, an obvious cash-in on the "hoodie black metal" fad, overall the greatest proof that contemporary metalheads use their rectums instead of aural canals for music reception. Next...

Batushka can be summed up by Hermh band going...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oe0UiwI8AgE

missing the point much? nobody's saying batoushka are serious christians (let alone orthodox christians), not even batoushka themselves. all I'm saying is they use christian orthodox chants, tropes etc., creating a collage or montage of sorts, hence postmodern BM (and, most importantly, they fail to create a captivating atmosphere in doing so).
I'm not claiming a "universal ideology" in BM either. that's just the way I see it in my book. don't put anything I didn't say in my mouth. you are entitled to your own, possibly differing opinion.
the rejection of anything christian is the lowest common denominator in my definition of black metal, be it in terms of ideology, aesthetics, what have you, so batoushka embracing orthodox-inspired aesthetics makes them not black metal, but some entirely different gimmick.