Krolok come from Bratislava and play black metal that looks back, to the era when the genre still had room for very long, patient songs. “Hričov – Súľov – Lietava” is their third album and keeps that line, with less darkness for the sake of darkness and more storytelling.
Country: Slovakia
Genre: Black metal
For fans of: Malokarpatan, Remmirath
The band started in 2011 with Graf von K. and since then has moved in a sound rooted in the old scene, with its members playing in parallel with Malokarpatan and Remmirath. Along the way it has the demo “When the Moon Sang Our Songs” (2014), the EP “At the End of a New Age” (2016) and two albums, “Flying Above Ancient Ruins” (2017) and “Funeral Winds & Crimson Sky” (2021), which stood out with “The Reptile Abyss Beneath Dowina”.
The new album takes its name from three castle ruins and has a more theatrical theme than the previous one, without changing the band’s voice. What changes is the staging: the tracks do not charge straight in, they build the landscape first.
“Hričov” runs almost fourteen minutes, opens with keyboards that set the tone and reaches a hymnal passage around halfway through, before returning to the darkness. “Súľov” moves at a more mid-paced tempo, has a folk middle section and choral vocals that lift the air, while “Lietava” is the most direct track, with orchestral hits, narration and guitars that sound like distorted recordings from another decade. Between them, the short “Pod Skalnou bránou”, “Dolu Váhom” and “Posledný zárez v čase” act as air between the acts, with dungeon synth, recitation and forest.
The album does not open a new chapter for Krolok, but it does change the volume: the atmosphere is colder and higher up, like a night sky from an altitude that does no good to a person. Anyone who loves the sound of the early and mid-90s with a narrative mood and tolerance for long tracks will find plenty here, but not an easy listen.
See also
Offernat – The Ecstasy of Death
