Track By Tracks: Die Entweihung - Kings & Pawns (2024)

The album in general:

Musically, the album continues the line of the two previous albums at that time, “Neverending Terrorism” and “The Worst Is Yet To Come”: from the early work, only black metal vocals remained, the style now continues to go into a mixture of classical metal and other directions: thrash, doom, etc. + a bit of Middle Eastern melodics, introduced mainly through bouzouki and solo guitar.

Conceptually, the album is dedicated to confrontation in its various forms: confrontation between man and state, man and society, and man and life in general.

1. Away Into The Night:

The energetic instrumental introduction to the album begins with the effect of searching for the desired frequency on radio waves. Just a short instrumental piece, less than three minutes long.

2. The Moustached God:

One of the most important songs on the album is dedicated to Alexander Lukashenko, the first (and at the moment the only, despite the fact that 30 years have passed) president of my homeland - Belarus. The lyrics directly expose all the problems in the country, about how it went that, through the efforts of one person, who over the years of rule built everything around himself in such a way that the country was and still is, in fact, trapped in a dictatorship structure, although in fact, this structure itself is now subordinate to Russia, which today is essentially the only country that can help economically or otherwise. The country, which had every chance of a free and better life, was driven to the very bottom, both economically and civilly: no freedom in anything, and after the start of the war between Russia and Ukraine, Belarus received a full set of sanctions, because officially, Belarus supports what the Russian state has done in Ukraine.

Musically, the song has a strong Middle Eastern flavor, with multi-layered riff structures. Perhaps the most evil and closest to my old style of early black metal.

3. As The Hangover Starts:

A mid-tempo epic song, with a long almost doom metal part in the middle and a crazy black metal ending. On most of my albums, you can easily find something epic, with a lot of changes in tempo or overall mood, on this album there is such a song - “As The Hangover Starts”. By the way, despite the title, which some will find funny, the lyrics of the song do not at all tell about some kind of alcoholic drinking bouts, the main theme here is the confrontation between a person and the society around him. The feelings and state of a person (he may not be a misanthrope, but simply tired of the human stupidity around him)who is just no longer able to tolerate people he hates are described, and in order to forget and calm down, he gets drunk when he comes home. And in the morning everything starts all over again, he sobers up (accordingly, as the hangover starts) and again, putting on the mask of a “smiling and friendly guy,” he goes to work, forcing himself, for the sake of money, to see and communicate with empty and stupid people again and again. This is a superficial interpretation, I am sure that everyone can find an interpretation that they like. And yes... I'm sure many people could recognize themselves in this song.

4.Confrontation:

As on the previous two albums, the 4th track is a full-fledged instrumental piece, about four minutes long. The title "Confrontation" just matches the overall album concept. You can regard this piece as “The Confrontation of Music and Words,” where music wins this time. Mid-tempo material, again with Middle Eastern melodic elements, and lots of guitar solos. Interlude before the second part of the album.

5. Kings & Pawns:

The first vocal duet on the album. I sang half of each verse and the last chorus, and Alexander from the Russian thrash metal band Jinx sang half of each verse and the first two choruses. Probably my favorite song on the album, I immediately knew it had good potential, and three years later I still think it's probably one of our best songs by any criterion. It was initially planned, by the way, that Alexander would be the main vocalist for the next album ("Strict Regime Country"), but circumstances were such that his participation was limited only to the actual composition being reviewed. In any case, thanks to him for his participation! The lyrics of the song have many similarities with the theme of the song “The Moustached God”, but if it talks specifically about Belarus and Lukashenko, then “Pawns” tells about an abstract ruler who stubbornly goes over other people's heads to the very top, promising at the same time that he will work for the good of his people, but in the end, the result is another war, to which he sends his own people. In fact, the song is suitable for almost any time and for any state, because It seems to me that there is practically not a single place in the world where people live that would not encounter what is sung in the song. In general, a universal song in terms of lyrics. In terms of music... hmm, sounds like Middle Eastern heavy/thrash...?!

6. The Nonsense Games:

Usually on my albums, in addition to the obligatory epic, there is also something that can be roughly called a ballad or semi-ballad. On this album, it's a "The Nonsense Games" song. It was with this song, as well as with Lennon's cover (more on that later) on this album that the collaboration with Alena from the Czech band Nocturnal Pestilence began. Already on the next album, she performed approximately 40% of the vocals, and on the new album, work on which is now actively underway, she will act as lead vocalist on all songs. For me, working with her is a satanic blessing, Alena’s vocal potential is truly limitless, and I am deeply convinced that it was her contribution that brought Die Entweihung to a truly higher level. As for "The Nonsense Games", it's an epic semi-ballad, with almost acoustic verses and heavy choruses, as well as an epic bridge and solo. One of the songs where, as for me, the bouzouki part fits perfectly. The lyrics are about the confrontation between a person and the everyday life that devours him. And not just the average person, but specifically musicians, and people of art in general, who often, without receiving real money for their creativity, at some stage simply leave their favorite business for the sake of a career, money, family, children, etc. There are a huge number of such examples in many areas, but since the theme of rock and metal underground is closest to me, the lyrics touch on this particular movement. I have seen many times how a new band appears, whose musicians have this fire in their eyes and a lot of ambitions, they are ready to conquer the whole world, but... after some time (usually quite short) they simply can't withstand this struggle with everyday reality and break down, subsequently only telling their children and grandchildren about their “turbulent youth”, which will never return.

7. The Only Thing Worthy To Save:

Confrontation between man and fate. The inspiration for writing this text was the sudden death of my friend and musician from Belarus, who died on the eve of his concert at the age of 46. The main idea is very simple: live every day like it’s your last, and enjoy every day because you never know what can happen to you at any second. Musically, it's practically doom metal, with black metal vocals. Sometimes it seems to me that I went too far with the amount of text in the chorus, on the other hand, you can’t remove words from a song, otherwise, it will be a different song.

8. Working Class Hero:

The cover version of John Lennon's song from his 1970 album "Plastic Ono Band". In terms of the lyrics, it fits very well with the concept of confrontation, in this case between man and society: you have not yet been born, but people around have already assigned a huge number of responsibilities to you, they teach you how to live, they decide for you what is good for you and what is not. Musically, I tried to “load” the song as much as possible, which in the original was performed simply with an acoustic guitar. All vocal parts were performed by Alena, which sound just perfect. Lenin sucks, Lennon rules!

9. Sons Of The Moon And Fire:

Another cover is actually a bonus track because it is not consistent with the album's style, either musically or lyrically. The original is a song by the Russian black metal duo Der Gerwelt, whose mastermind was Alexander Kantemirov, a member of bands like Tales of Darknord, Rossomahaar, Stonehenge, etc., as well as the owner of the cult label More Hate Productions. I’ve been a fan of this project for more than 20 years, and I consider it one of the best in black metal in general; it was Der Gerwelt’s recordings that opened up to me the world of really evil and hellish black metal, but at the same time breathtakingly hit and melodic. So far this material has made a strong impression. So I always knew that it was only a matter of time before I recorded a cover of something from their catalog. Unfortunately, the time came when the second participant in the project, Aarbrek (Dmitry Abramov), died. Then it was decided not to put things off any longer and record a cover in the near future. The bass line, by the way, was played by Anton Shirl, bassist/vocalist of Tales of Darknord and session bassist in the Der Gerwelt project. In fact, it's a funny story because Shirl recorded bass for the original song and many years later recorded bass for my cover. Initially, there was talk about recording his bass on other tracks from the album, but it didn’t work out. Either way, he did a great job, thanks Shirl!

Thanks, everyone!