Groza’s return is expected for 2021.
Created in Germany in 2016 by P.G. (guitar/vocals) as a solo project, it evolves into a full band and the members decided to remain anonymous. Their first album was released in 2018, then after three years, here is The Redemptive End, at AOP Records.
Whether opinions on their first album were lukewarm, reproaching a too important proximity with the polish band MGLA, this album changes everything.
Certainly they didn’t change their visual identity, but their sound evolved. We of course have this sometimes melodic but still raw Black Metal basis that begins with Sunken In Styx – Part I Submersion, a soft but worrying introduction. The sound comes slowly closer, creating a weighing atmosphere, then instruments come to develop a dissonant melancholy. Some words in the background, the rhythmic increases, then Sunken In Styx – Part II Descent makes the sound explode with a howling. Vocals are very raw, driving lacerating riffs that sometimes reveal warlike tones without neglecting heady leads. Elegance Of Irony comes next and offers an ambient rhythmic between dissonance and haunting tones that slowly shroud us. Quiet parts succeed to violence explosions, but vocals are sometimes in the background before the final part, on which we hear Peter Zilles’ saxophone under screams. We also have it on The Redemptive End, a heavier and more oppressive composition. Whether the beginning of the song is really rough, the sound will be cut to offer some clean part that progressively intensifies before unleashing this dark rage. The band stays into melancholy with Nil, a majestic composition that will unleash its rhythmic in due time, or let howlings’ furor set fire to our mind, then Homewards, the last song, comes to surround us with a veil of dissonance. Whether vocals take time to enter, the rhythmic handles to stun us while melodies mesmerize us, and this contrast between beauty and violence can be permanently found into the song. The storm suddenly calms down before increasing again, then a real wave of blackness strikes us with frighteningly intense vocals before decreasing again to die in the void.
Groza changed. Their roots are still here, but they allow the band to build their own universe. The Redemptive End knows how to be melancholic and soft, just like dark and furious, while spreading heady and ice-cold riffs.
90/100