Batushka (Bartłomiej Krysiuk) - Пророк Илия / Prorok Ilja (2025)^{Release ID: 57001}

If like me, you found the whole Batushka thing a tad exhausting, you probably run the risk of not bothering with their records. Patriarkh are the Bartłomiej Krysiuk version of what once was his version of Batushka. I think. Thankfully, the music here is much less confusing than the origins of it. A suitably choral affair, given the religious themes of the group, Prophet Ilja (to give the album its English translation) is a different take on atmospheric black metal most certainly. Mind you there’s enough of the band to provide this variance from the norm.

There are three guitarists listed as being contributors on the record (does not sound like they are all deployed at once). As well as main vocalist Bartłomiej Krysiuk, I count another five (choral and otherwise) contributors. As a result, the album feels like it is growing from track to track. There is little variation to the format in all honesty, but the different vocalist appearances do add some welcome variation. This is not to say that otherwise the album is boring, far from it in fact. It stays true to an atmo-black metal record style and gives a solid acquittal of its credentials in the process.

I feel the pacing helps here, a lot. They know when to slow things down to emphasise the more ethereal elements of their sound or to enhance the harsher vocals in some sections. Equally they can use the softer, spoken word elements to introduce the quick switch to some more familiar black metal intensity. It is a tad predictable in the sense of where the record is going, but it is pulled off with a sense of panache. It turns out that the album is a concept album upon further research, and this explains the format of the album a little better. Prophet Ilja was the leader of a religious sect in the 1930’s and 40’s. His preaching about the coming apocalypse soon started to be questioned amongst some, whilst others were radicalized by them leading to the creation of New Jerusalem in the village of Wierszalin. New Jerusalem was never finished and eventually got eaten up by the forest.

Thankfully, unlike New Jerusalem, this album is a complete package that grows in the entertainment stakes with each passing track. Like Prophet Ilja to some of his followers, I am sold on the message of the album. It is a gentle black metal album that revels in storytelling However gentle it seems, it does retain enough intensity to please the black metal aficionados out there I am sure.