Trollech are a pagan black metal band from the Czech Republic who perform an extreme version of black metal with some atmospheric influences. Their latest album, Jasmuz, is an interesting attempt, but unfortunately throw listeners off at first. This is mostly due to the vocals. On the first track, "Moudrost kováře," the vocalist performs this very annoying squawk, like that of a raven, which completely ruins the beauty of the track as a whole. While there's some acoustic parts amongst the catchy black metal that tries to come off a drinking metal material, the vocals just rob all the attention, and not in a good way. The good news is that this only happens once during the entire album.
For the rest of the duration, the vocals sound pretty decent. Tracks like "Brneni" and "Osbovenzini" are more straight forward black metal with their razor sharp riffs, seamless flow of music, and thundergod drums which incorporating some rock n' roll melody into the music. Others are more atmospheric and catchy. "Královský jezdec" has a progressive breakdown in the middle while "Do vezeni" feature some clean singing and when the guitars decide to perform in a more single string fashion rather than chords, the music sounds even catchier and enjoyable than when everything is raging at once. The guitar solos sound very folk influenced and hold the essence that bagpipes might deliver, but don't sound as organic. "Strom koloběhu" is the most atmospheric of all for its lengthy acoustic section that really defines the kind of pagan metal that Trollech is trying to convey; sadly there aren't more tracks like this on the album, but then again, rare gems are more memorable than ones that are played all the time.
For the most part, Jasmuz is a pretty balanced black metal album. The lack of more folk inspired melodies leaves something to be desired considering it is called pagan black metal, or forest metal. Usually the music is more ambient, and Jasmuz almost comes off as a regular melodic black metal album. However, the fact that the band tries to structure their music in the form of tavern drinking songs is a fresh listen for sore ears, and even though the vocals are basically mediocre for most of the album, compared to how they are on the first track, they sound pretty damned good. For fans of Skogen, Hate Forest, or Walknut.
