There have been a great many times that I find myself listening to the rawest of black metal and can easily find myself either enjoying it or just finding it boring. Like every style, it really comes down to the band in question to really make the material work, and I’d be lying if I didn’t say that Wilczyca didn’t win me over at first. But, after a little while, this work really started to grow on me to become one of the rawest forms of the style that I’ve come to latch onto but they do a little bit more than just that throughout the album.

This is far from anything that I’d consider great by my standards by any means, but in no way whatsoever does this album fall flat on its face like much of the competition. A lot of times, other bands just have a sound that feels like the material was crafted in a stone basement without much post-production. That can just as easily result in music that is interesting, but if you don’t try to make it the least bit interesting then you fail. With “Horda”, though, we get something better than I thought we would. Wilczyca does not whatsoever hold back with the raw black metal in the slightest but the Polish band works in fantastic riffage that isn’t too forced but, instead, pulls you even further into the crypts that “Horda” starves carving out with the very first note. Throw in more ambiance that somehow fits really well with everything that Wilczyca has built for such a scathing listen and we’re given a surprisingly interesting release that has much more to it than what the first track would allude to, and to say that this band doesn’t capitalize on it all at every turn would be to greatly undermine what’s been made here. Far from anything new but a whole bunch of interesting material from top to bottom, “Horda” has a lot more to it than one might suspect at first, and Wilczyca uses such an opportunity to the absolute maximum.

Everything about this record is something that I’d like to see from the rawest forms of black metal whether they be with or without riffs or daring enough to include ambiance, yet Wilczyca made it work perfectly. “Horda” shows right off the bat that this band knows exactly what they’re doing to great effect, and it’s surely just the start for Wilczyca.

LISTEN to “Horda” on Bandcamp here.

LIKE Wilczyca on Facebook here.