Discovering Slovak music scene: Malokarpatan and 10 more interesting bands
Today we are getting closer to Slovak music scene, mostly of the days passed, and our personal guide is the founder of Malokarpatan band — the guitarist Adam Sičák.
Malokarpatan was formed in autumn of 2014, with the intention to play black metal inspired by its 80s pioneers such as Venom, Mercyful Fate, Bathory, Tormentor, Kat, Torr etc. The lyrical concept maintains dark elements of our local folklore traditions and history. We consider ourselves a continuation of the early Czechoslovak black metal style, pioneered by bands like Torr, Root, Master's Hammer, Fata Morgana, Dai etc. Our focus is on classic metal riffs, inspired by the 70s and 80s, and an obscure, definitely local atmosphere — something impossible to find among western bands because of different cultural background. We have released three full length albums so far and played gigs across Europe and North America. Our home base is Invictus Productions to which we are devoted despite the interest from a few bigger labels.
Album "Krupinské ohne"
"Stridzie dni" (Old Days — ed.) was our debut album, it was released back in 2015, since then we have released two more — the latest one came out in 2020 and is named "Krupinske ohne" (The Fires of Krupina — ed.). We always evolve with each new album but save the basics on which the band stands: early, pre-Norwegian-styled black metal and local foklore/occult traditions. The latest album is a conceptual story about the witch coven which operated in the small Slovak town Krupina during the 17th century. For this reason the songs are very long, with more adventurous songwriting, influenced by 70s progressive rock, but still they keep to that primitive Venom/Bathory core as a backbone of the music. We are slowly working on the next album, which will be a bit different from its predecessors, again. Briefly, more focused songs this time, but all with some bizarre elements we like to use.
Connection with Ukraine
My grandfather was of the Carpathian Ruthenian origin, which is basically closer to Ukrainian culture than it is to Slovak one. That is the most direct connection I have to your country. I personally find Ukrainian folklore beautiful and for that reason I liked a lot of your movies, e.g. such as "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors" or "Lesnaya pesnya Mavka". We are both Slavic nations of course, so our cultures have some similarities in certain areas. About music — I'm afraid I don't know many Ukrainian bands, as the combination of folk music with metal is a very hit or miss affair to me, so it's often not my kind of style. From some 90s demos that come to mind, I remember liking Great Horn — "Trizna After Sunset" (1999) and Forgotten Spirit — "The Masters of Slavonic Forests" (1997). Otherwise, I am fond of the originality of Brainstorm, and Graal, those are probably the most unique projects I've heard from Ukraine. I would love to check some early heavy metal from your country, so if anyone has recommendations for 80s Ukrainian metal, please let me know.
Underground scene in Slovakia
Though I like old Slovak culture — such as folklore, movies, history etc, I must say I never was fond of our music scene with some notable exceptions. I think a lot of interprets lack of originality, having something of their own to tell to the world, they repeat western trends instead. At the same time I have an absolute respect for Slovak progressive rock from the 70s, that was an extremely small scene but with the high-quality music, even when compared to foreign bands. Metal had its golden age here around late 80s and in the early 90s when the communist regime was going away, people were hungry for "forbidden" things. But soon it vanished throughout the 90s and nowadays our metal scene turned small again.
The majority of Malokarpatan members also play in black metal band Krolok, so we recommend listening to it
Slovak scene and COVID
Slovakia is like European Australia when it comes to all kinds of absurd dystopian restrictions masked behind caring about people's health. We had such extreme lockdowns! For example, you weren't allowed to travel outside your own region, or to come out of your own house after a certain hour. Even now some of those rules slowly reintroduce in certain areas of the country. I hate Slovak government with all my heart and spend most of my time in Sweden where my girlfriend lives. There are no such totalitarian measures at all. We stopped all live activity unless it comes to normal, and I have serious doubts about that, at least for the coming year. I rather focus on writing and recording new music, which I enjoy more than live performances anyway.
Top 10 Slovak bands (who they are and why we picked them):
DEZO URSINY
Slovak art-rock interpret who was active mainly during the 70s and 80s, I think he was one of the greatest artists for all time to come out of our small country. I would recommend his first two records, as they have a darker, more introspective and contemplative nature than his later work, even though I really enjoy those newer records as well.
COLLEGIUM MUSICUM
Another legends of Slovak progressive rock. Heavily inspired by Emerson, Lake and Palmer, but they had their own special vibe — more melancholic, and sometimes more psychotic sound than ELP had. Also, their classical music influences were mostly composers of early 20th century.
FERMATA
I guess you may call them jazz rock or jazz fusion, but I also consider them a part of the big 70s prog family. Some of their records were inspired by Slovak folk culture, which had, in turn, a huge influence on me.
SVETOZAR STRACINA
Not really a band, but a composer of classical and film music whom I greatly admire. He kept alive the specific magic of Slovak folk music and brought it into cinema. Some of our songs contain samples from the movies with his excellent works.
TUBLATANKA
The most successful Slovak heavy metal band and one of the earliest. They later shifted into very banal pop-rock, but their first 4-5 records are absolute classics. I would recommend their third album "Zerave znamenie osudu" — the best Slovak heavy metal record ever.
METALINDA
The second of the most famous 80s metal groups. They took a more commercial direction even earlier than Tublatanka, but I wholeheartedly recommend their debut LP, all killer and no filler there. Their vocalist from that era was also a guest on our latest album.
CERBERUS
This band is so obscure that they are, unfortunately, absent even at the Metal Archives page. Their story is followed by bad luck — after recording a totally killing debut album called "Trojska vojna" in the early 90s, they instantly had troubles. For example, they met a lack of interest from their label and, on the top of that, the factory where their LPs were stored was destroyed by a flood. The album survived on dubbed tapes at least, and nowadays one can listen to it on the excellent "Heavy Metal of Eastern Bloc" channel on YouTube. It's a bit difficult to categorize their style, let it be classic 80s heavy/power metal, fused with thrash and some seriously dark atmospheres throughout, creating almost a black metal feeling at times.
NECROTOS
Probably the earliest Slovak black metal band, formed in the late 80s. Nowadays people would probably put them into the thrash metal category or something, but I don't care, black metal was always foremost about ideology and a certain atmosphere rather than specific stylistic elements. A demo "Fire and Ice" is probably their best material.
MYSTIC DEATH
Pretty much the only good second-wave-inspired black metal band we had here in the 90s. Their sole album is sort of a minor classic of the local underground. The sound was closest to Abigor, just a bit more on the melodic side.
MONTE ROSA
Dark synthpop from the late 80s/early 90s. Quite heavily influenced by Depeche Mode, Camouflage and other western bands in that vein. Nothing wildly original, but I really enjoy the atmosphere of 80s Bratislava in their music as that is the time and place I was born and grew up in.
Malokarpatan in social networks:
https://www.facebook.com/malokarpatan
https://malokarpatan.bandcamp.com/
https://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Malokarpatan/3540401141
Earlier we wrote about other European scenes — Polish, Czech, Hungarian and Romanian
The cover photo — from the band’s social network
