Year: 2026
Label: Handful of Hate
Rating: 8,1 / 10
New fiery shoots continue to sprout on the black Krywian land. Today we will talk about KRYVASMOK ("Bloodsucker"). Behind this band is a young man with the nickname Pryvid ("Ghost"), who writes and plays most of the music himself. The foundation for all this is provided by a powerful veteran G.W., whose achievements should be very well known to you at the moment.
First of all: despite the name, KRYVASMOK bears little resemblance to the countless ”vamphyriick" Black Metal bands, which is great because they all sound the same, and I'm already sick of listening to them. Pryvid has a very good melodic feeling, so his works are closer to the classics of SATANIC WARMASTER or DROWNING THE LIGHT. I'll even say that he writes songs around the melodies that come to his head, rather than inventing these melodies during the jamming process, like most musicians, because the songs sometimes develop very arbitrarily, but it is always obvious that their core is the main motives, not rigid rhythmic structures.
KRYVASMOK's music gradually becomes more dramatic over the course of the album. For example, the title track could fit well into the discography of GHASH. But the sound gives the music a completely different direction. It smells like a damp tomb and some very specific antiquity. That is, this is not a standard ”DARKTHRONE worship", but something of its own. The only thing that comes to mind from this is Pryvid's other scene colleagues – MORDSTORM – but this guy sounds much more purposeful. Finally, the vocals are sometimes performed in the style, I'm not afraid of this statement, of the first KRUK albums. Because of that, the music gives a very familiar feeling of the old days of our scene. It's great that Pryvid wasn't afraid to use some clear-voiced chants and proclamations. The combination of all the elements creates a truly distinctive album, which (just like in all those disgusting press releases from some Western labels!!!) is modern, but at the same time deeply rooted in the traditions of the past. "Smierć..." has this undoubtedly local, Krywian nature. Krywian Bloodsucker! We wuz Nosferatu ‘n shiet…
However, the main feature of the album, in my opinion, is an unexpectedly strongly home-felt – and, again, specific – grief. If we stick to vampire symbolism, then it is like a relatively young Nosferatu, thirsting for blood, but at the same time terribly suffering from memories of life and loneliness, cold, emptiness. All these melancholic tremolos and leads combined with “undead" vocals are truly soul-tearing. The lyrics here are mostly about death, vanity, cold fingers of the dead and similar things. They turned out to be surprisingly mature, especially against the background of endless nonsense about "dark rituals under the fullmoon", which satisfies KRYVASMOK's colleagues in this style.
As always, technical details in the finale: in addition to the main duo, M82A1 (in his constant role as editor-in-chief / adaptor of the lyrics of the Krywian scene), Cobbra (logo, photo), Greek (design) helped with the album. Pryvid made the mix by himself, and G.W. mastered the record. It was released by Handful of Hate in standard format with 8-page booklet. Details on a video.
