Batushka - Hospodi

I went into this album quite like many others aware of the shadiness involved in its culmination, ready to hate it and deride Krysiuk for his leechcraft against Drabikowski and bastardization of the Batushka name and legacy. And I think a lot of people are letting the indeed disturbing context surrounding Hospodi’s release really influence their perception of the album, which I’m not saying they don’t have the right to take into account when listening to it and deciding whether or not to financially support the apparent thievery at play here. But I think most of the vehement disdain for Krysiuk’s version of Batushka would have you think he was just some random trickster who walked in and snatched the rights to the band name like a phantom from out of nowhere. It seems like a lot of people forget that he was indeed part of Batushka since 2015, and part of the highly acclaimed Litourgiya; even if Drabikowski was the driving artistic visionary, Krysiuk was there and very much part of the band and immersed in their sound for a long time. So it would make sense that he be at least somewhat capable of rehashing the band’s aesthetic without Drabikowski’s assistance.

I should explain that I’m not saying this to vindicate any of Krysiuk’s unethical actions, more to provide a perspective from outside the tribal mindset that this ownership dispute has formed. It would be easy if the bad guy who stole the rights to the band was also terrible at his masquerade and obvious in his inauthenticity. It would be easy if it sounded like it was an obvious rip-off. But maybe Krysiuk isn’t as inept as so many of those critical (and justifiably so) of his sinister deception would like to see him as being.

I bring this up because so many people seem to be basing their criticism on this album being audibly distinguishable as inauthentic when I don’t think that will appear to be the case to those outside this whole debacle who might see the criticism as baseless and shrouded in bias. And I completely agree with the criticism of this album not being separable from the theft that spawned it and that needing to be addressed, but I think letting that criticism of artistic integrity spill carelessly into criticism of the art itself is inaccurate and potentially irresponsible. Again, it would be easy if it was obvious Krysiuk was a crook; Metal Blade maybe wouldn’t have signed him if they thought he couldn’t reproduce Litourgiya’s aesthetic at least superficially. It’s just one of those things that can be tempting to treat as black and white, good and evil, when (at least on the musical front) it’s probably best to treat as being a bit more nuanced.

Also, just before I get into the content of this album, I would like to clarify, just in case I came across as condescending to those who have expressed their hatred for this album, I’m not trying to act holier than thou or put words in your mouth, I bring this up because I can closely sympathize with your position. Like I said, I went in ready to hate this album, but the level of competence I heard here caught me off guard and forced me to re-evaluate my approach to assessing this contextually complicated album. From what I’m hearing, to argue that Bart is clearly not the rightful owner of the Batushka name because he’s making some kind of amateurish mockery of the name that anyone can hear is just not convincing enough. I’m not trying to act all high and mighty or be a dick, I promise. With that, I suppose it’s a good time to get into what the hell is actually on this album.

What the teaser tracks from Hospodi suggested of it being (kind of a combination of standard ambient black metal, symphonic black metal, and Batushka’s signature choral chants) are indeed representative of the album, and it’s this use of blackgaze-y tremolo picking and more build-up-focused post-metal song structures that many have pointed out as kind of the smoking gun that proves this album to be a half-baked attempt by a con artist to fraudulently recreate something that was never his to create. And I would agree that the long-winded and sometimes dragging and unfulfilling builds are the most notable difference between Hospodi and Litourgiya (and Panihida). The lengthy shoegazy guitar drones on songs like “Dziewiatyj Czas” and “Polunosznica” aim for the traditional post-rock/metal crescendo but don’t really pay off or even get there and seem to serve as time filler to possibly mask a lack of other ideas of how to build anticipation. Indeed, Krysiuk seems to only have one or two ideas of how to do that crescendo when he gets there.

But just because Hospodi doesn’t sound like an unaltered continuation of Litourgiya doesn’t mean it sounds like complete trash. In fact, the production on here is pretty well-done with fine attention paid to the choral vocals to help them sound as lush as possible. Along with the sinister groove it transitions into, the choral backing over the rapid double-bass of “Wieczernia”, while not as dynamic as similar sections on Litourgiya, is certainly a bright spot. As far as other highlights go, the incantation of the choirs that open the song “Utrenia”, along with its uncharacteristic palm-muted chugging section are some of the better implementations of the choral metal sound, as well as the ethereal highs of the choir on “Szestoj Czas”.

But it is certainly the choirs that carry this album and its noticeably less imaginative lead guitar work and drumming, to the point of being a crutch for the atmosphere of the traditional metal instrumental to lean on and quite possibly to provide cover for a certain artist’s lack of confidence in his own ability to represent the Batushka sound at every angle. And even then, often the choirs aren’t enough to prop the songs up in their barest sections, which are many.

As immersive and dicey as the whole conflict surrounding this band is, this is certainly just the beginning of it, as hardcore day-one fans, largely aligned with the legally stripped Drabikowski, will support him in any kind of square-up he gets into with the Metal Blade and Polish court-backed Krysiuk. And as interesting of a situation as it will be to see unfold, it’s also a profoundly sad and disgusting one, one where it seems like a prominent metal label cosigned and thereby endorsed artistic, and therefore monetary, thievery and a subsequent miscarriage, or at least unfortunate procession, of justice. I know I was tempering the vitriolic reactions to this album’s music in my intro, but after sitting with these two albums (Panihida and Hospodi), it’s clear that Panihida is a more natural expression of what what at the heart of Batuska on Litourgiya, while Hospodi plays like an expensive, but distinguishable replica of the real thing. And I can’t help but see what so many other Batushka fans see in this conflict: a true artist robbed of his creation and unable to get it back except perhaps by the potentially futile fight for it through the continued output of music itself. And it’s tempting to view that in a kind of romantic light, but again, I definitely don’t want to downplay or understate the gravity of the injustice of the situation in the seemingly very likely case that Drabikowski is telling the truth, as his music suggests he is. For that reason, it being very likely that it was created through highly unethical means, as much as I might not hate the sound of it as much as most Batushka fans, I can not endorse this album. For all this terrible situation’s dicey facets, at the end of it all at least one thing is left very simple. When the desire to hear the beauty of Batushka’s music arises and presents a choice of listening to either Hospodi or Panihida, at least the most likely ethical choice is also the most pleasurable one. At least that part of all this is easy./10