Nervously putting out a cigarette, a boy with a magical aura laughs heartily: “These stories, only in metal!”. His drinking buddy wears a Wacken t-shirt: “I haven't been so passionate about it since Al Bano's lawsuit against Michael Jackson!”. Among the tables at Traffic, at 738 Prenestina Street, the story is that of the Batushkas from Białystok, in the Podlaskie Voivodeship, and yes, a legal case has something to do with it. The one that since 2018 has seen guitarist Krzysztof “Derph” Drabikowski and singer Bartłomiej “Bart” Krysiuk pitted against each other, competing for the very name of the band, БАТЮШКА in Cyrillic, in a Warsaw court. A feud between ex-bandmates, which saw Derph triumph last June, effectively banning Krysiuk from using the name, on record and obviously live. Bart's band will then be called Patriarkh, and this, after all, is among the reasons why so many fans of the band flocked: probably the last Roman performance of the Batushka offshoot with the original name. The last stop of the second version of the Polish group, which has practically doubled since 2018, just three years after its foundation. Under the severe gaze of Grigórij Efímovič Raspútin, who hovers over the t-shirts sold by merchandising at the end of the pleasant outdoor area of the Traffic Live Club.
Among long-haired men in short shorts and black lipsticks, the audience of the historic Roman venue doesn't come just for the group that brought sacred hymns to European metal. The Dutch God Dethroned start with the black-death fusillades of “Asmodeus”, before unleashing the guitar solo in “The Hanged Man” and showing an increasingly evident process of blackening of the initial death setting, such as in songs like “Rat Kingdom”.
After 9pm, it's time for Vltimas, the supergroup of David Vincent (Morbid Angels) with Blasphemer Eriksen (Mayhem). Between the kitsch roar of “EPIC” and the roller coaster of “Miserere” – whose riff mosh pit between black, death and trash – the band has a steamroller's pace, led by the wide brims of Vincent's black hat. Like a cowboy from hell, the frontman Charlotte varies her vocal timbre between growl And spoken-wordindulging in sometimes excessively theatrical poses on catchier songs such as “Invictus”. While the audience calls for the last one, David dances on stage, before attacking the groove furious with the “Everlasting” finale.
In the new break it is a pleasure to find the two fans of black metal and lawsuits, who now tell all the darkest plots of the Black Metal Inner Circle, also known as Black Metal Mafia. But tonight an anti-Christian sentiment of Norwegian origins cannot spread, because the future patriarch Bartłomiej “Bart” Krysiuk is about to go on stage amid the pungent smell of incense and the enveloping heat of the Orthodox fire. Wrapped in esoteric robes, hooded and imposing, БАТЮШКА go on stage at Traffic at around 10.40 pm, on the macabre lament with baritone rhythms that brings everyone into the exact mood from black mass.
The set is set up as always, among skulls and crosses, while the audience welcomes in religious silence the distorted wall of “Yekteniya III: Premudrost”, erected by Bart between poems in ancient Slavonic and the scream satanist. The sound it is dark, tinged with doom in “Yekteniya IV: Milost”, obsessive in the tribalism bordering on nu-metal in “Wieczernia”. Beyond all the artistic and legal quarrels, the future Patriarkh expertly reels off agreements between black metal and darkwave, with riff elephants of Sabbathian memory. The subsequent “Powieczerje” is also taken from the album “Hospodi” (2019), supported by a perfect Slayer-style thrash rhythm. The ceremony proceeds inexorably between live flames and icons raised to the sky, on the melodic opening of “Polunosznica” and the martial procession of “Utrenia”.
The mystical guitar that introduces “Irmos II” narrates the latest mini-album “Raskol”, which saw the band settle on the small Witching Hour label. The pairing of the EP is with the hypnotic atmospheres of “Irmos III”, followed closely by the symphonic “Pismo IV”, which is one of the previews of the next album with the new name.
The last twenty minutes of the set are thus dedicated to “Wierszalin” (in declinations III, IV and VIII), between very sweet feminine echoes, black pulverizations and instrumental rides from warriors of the apocalypse. The fire is put out and the public witnesses the solemn exit of the group, now awaiting a new artistic life after the defeat in the coldest halls of the Polish court.
Antonio Santini for SANREMO.FM
