БАТЮШКА BATUSHKA

Come, my friend, and worship the lord with me. Lo, on this day I give to you a story of crushingly heavy hymns, betrayal between friends, and a confusing conclusion. 

Welcome to Wacky Music Wednesday, I'm your host, Polish(ish) Joshua, and today we are going full Orthodox - Eastern Orthodox, that is. 

Today's track is called 'Yekteniya V: Svyatyy Vkhod" by Batushka, a Polish black metal band. Wait, not that Batushka, the other Batushka. 

Hold on...

Am I telling you that there's two Polish black metal bands called Batushka that play Eastern Orthodox black metal?

Yep! More on that later, let's begin with the song.

Batushka's entire aesthetic centers around the eastern orthodox church. And I mean entirely: the lyrics are religious hymns to god, the performers dress in traditional priest robes, and the lyrics are all written in Old Church Slavonic. The word 'Batushka' is Cyrillic for 'Father' in the sense of a Orthodox priest. The founder of the band is quoted as saying "God's hymns are more metal than any satanic black metal music out there" which is just so badass (especially considering their execution lol)

The song begins with distant church bells and a rhythmic hand bells that in no way prepares you for the true beginning of the song when the rest of the band starts to play. I adore this opening, there is nothing held back; the pounding double bass, the canonically crushing lead guitar riff, and the holy screaming of the vocalist combine into a densely beautiful intro. 

The song throughout is dynamic, with plenty of black metal goodness, but also something wholly unique. The vocalist switches between screaming and chanting, with my favorite part starting at 3:58 where the chant eventually leads back into the main riff. GAWD DAMN IT'S JUST SO HEAVY.

Lyrically, this song is also super cool. Again, it's written in Old Church Slavonic, so you won't pick up any meaning from listening to the actual words being spoken (unless you are fluent in it, which is super cool)!!!.  OMG, can you read and speak old church Slavonic?  I'll look it up on Duolingo!!

An English excerpt:

"Amen!

Let us attend!

Peace be unto all!

I am the salvation

That has been sent unto the human race,

That they also with us may glorify

My most honorable and majestic name,

Now and ever, and unto the ages of ages, amen.

Amen!"

Cooommmmeeeee onnnnnn that's soooo cool!!!!

Black metal traditionally contains so many references to satan, that it's honestly really cool to get literally the exact opposite (despite this I wouldn't consider this white metal)  BAHAHAHA, I lol'd typing that!

An incredible song through and through, and I seriously recommend listening through the entire album in sequence, each song is similar in tone and theme, but completely unique against any other black metal out there right now. Personal favorites are Yekteniya 1, 2, 5 and 6.

 Onto the drama of this whole thing, and why there's 2 Batushka's. 

I don't fully understand the whole situation, but from what I gather, there was disagreements between the founders of the band when they were signed to a record deal in 2017. I'm assuming a bit here, but it kind of sounds like one of the members wanted to release an album immediately and the other wanted to wait, not 100% on that though. 

One founder trademarked the name, but they both separately worked on and released albums under the same name, which caused confusion amongst fans (and me right now lol).

There is still court battles going on over who is the real Batushka, and the most recent ruling (literally 2 days ago) ruled in favor of one of the founders, which caused the other to officially state that their band is now called 'Patriarkh'. Which Batushka had to change? I have no idea, Spotify still has them both as Batushka. 

The other Batushka has music extremely similar to the other, and is also a good listen if you are really in the mood for Eastern Orthodox Slavic black metal.  I mean, either that or Batushka could be a gotchic polka band out of Minoqua for all we know...

 This song and band really opened me up to an entirely different world of black metal such as MGLA and Winterhorde, who play very unique black metal. 

So there it is, I hope you enjoyed this WMW!! Polish(ish) Joshie Moshie out!