Five years after the release of their critically acclaimed album, Hospodi, Polish black metal icons PATRIARKH (former Batushka) return with new concept album ПРОРОК ИЛИЯ (Engl. Prophet Elijah). Their label debut will be released on January 03. 2025 via Napalm Records. Without a shadow of a doubt, PATRIARKH stand as one of the most exciting acts in today’s black metal scene and are now more than ready to bring their bone-shaking essence of arcane black metal to the next level!                    

                     

On eight completely new compositions, ПРОРОК ИЛИЯ details a true story that happened in the band’s home area of Podlasie, in the village of Grzybowszczyzna, in the 1930s and 40s. The album takes the listener into the world of Eliasz Klimowicz, the titular Prophet Ilja, an illiterate peasant who was the leader of the Orthodox Grzybowska Sect, active until the 1960s, cultivating and transmitting the history of the self-proclaimed prophet. PATRIARKH are spreading their gospel by using an arsenal of folk instruments, such as tagelharpa, mandolin, mandocello, hurdy gurdy and stringed dulcimer, and worked with a symphony orchestra and choirs to give their new creations the most organic and vivid feeling possible. As is trademark with PATRIARKH’s music, Orthodox sacredness is mixed with black and doom metal, now largely enriched with folk music, neo dark folk, and even film music. The band uses the entire palette of Orthodox music, venturing into the areas of Byzantine monody, liturgical chant and Russian polyphony, neatly adapting folk and liturgical melodies to their own style.                    

The lyrical side of ПРОРОК ИЛИЯ is an interesting mix of theater and pastoralism. PATRIARKH uses fragments of texts from the theater play "Prorok Ilja" and draws from the messages contained in the works of Włodzimierz Pawluczuk, combining it with folk and liturgical texts. On ПРОРОК ИЛИЯ, listeners can hear various languages – and Polish for the first time ever! The album was recorded in January and May 2024 at Tall Pine Records (Behemoth, Zalewski, Afromental), Heinrich House (Behemoth, Vesania, Hate), Wem Studio (Kasa Chorych, Lukasyno, Cira) and Radio Białystok studio The mixing and mastering was handled by Wojciech Wiesławski at Hertz Studio (Vader, Behemoth, Decapitated), and production by band mastermind and leading vocalist Bartłomiej "Варфоломей" Krysiuk. “ПРОРОК ИЛИЯ is an album full of emotions, sentimentalism and folklore. It’s pastoral, lyrical, epic, multidimensional and multicolored, just like my Podlasie is multicolored,” says Варфоломей. Dive into the deepest of all shadows with this black metal masterpiece and join PATRIARKH on this intriguing ride!