This
ominous doom band was based in UK five years ago by Paul Kenney who
spent a damn lot of time in different extreme underground bands
including black metal / grindcore outfit Fukpig. So one day he made
up his mind and create Kroh inviting Francis Anthony to contribute
vocals their self-titled debut.
Something
went wrong and after two split-albums with Fukpig and Ice Dragon they
called it quits on July 2013. Two years later Paul resurrected the
band with totally new lineup and result of this reborn is fresh and
loud full-length release “Altars”. I believe that the album will
not lost between records of other modern female-fronted occult doom
bands.
New
vocalist Olivia sings and chants with a low and tender voice, riffs
are resounding and fuzzy, and this overall haunted and creepy
atmosphere - all of it works together perfect. “Altars” hits the
bullseye, and though such stuff is widely demanded today, the band
sounds pretty honest and recognizable. Paul is here to share more
details about his creation.
Hi
Paul! You and Francis started Kroh as duet back in 2011, was it just
a side project for you? And what does that strange title mean?!
Kroh
has never been a side project for me. It’s been something I have
spent a lot of time planning and working on. The strange title was
something that I saw and thought would work for this project.
So what did you plan
for Kroh from very start? What was your primary intention and did you
fulfill it in the first album?
The
original idea was to take from my years of extreme music and make it
more structured, to make a dark world you can escape to. But the
first album kind of worked, I needed a lot more experience and effort
to reach the actual goal of the new album.
Satanism, murder,
madness, death - that's how metal-archives describe Kroh main lyrical
topics. How much of it was in Kroh self-titled debut?
That’s
what the debut was about, the new album is a lot different. The new
album is quite varied. But coming from the same world view.
Band's activity was
stopped in 2013, what did happen back then?
It
didn’t work, so I stopped working on it. It wasn’t how I wanted
it to sound. I had to gain more experience and meet the right people
before I could achieve what I had originally planned
How did you get that
it could work again? What did return you motivation to continue with
Kroh?
I managed to meet the
right people at the right time and put everything into place. Id
given up on music for a few years before I was drawn back in. I
thought I hadn’t achieved the original idea so I wanted to get new
people and make these songs work. It quickly all changed when I met
Oliwia.
Kroh – Heaving
Earth
In
2015 you recorded single “Precious Bones” with full new lineup
including Rich Stanton (drums), Darren Donovan (bass) and Oliwia
Sobieszek (vocals). How did you gather new members of Kroh?
Darren
and I have been in bands with for over 15 years, Rich plays with him
in another band, so it was easy to get them two. Oli and I met after
she answered an advert in my home town when she moved her for
University. Once we had got Oliwia the whole idea fell into place and
it all worked really well, really quickly.
How
long did you work over “Altars” album? Did all Kroh new members
take part in its composing?
Altars
has been worked on for the past year, a lot of effort and thought has
gone into it, songs have been chopped, changed and some deleted. It
was just Oliwia and me working on the album.
I own my own studio, so
working and recording is a lot easier than it used to be. We can
spend as long as we like in there and it doesn’t cost anything. We
had songs complete, but we also worked on some in the studio. Some of
the songs have changed a lot since the original idea was planted.
Did
the situation with lyrics have changed with “Altars”? The opening
track had the text written on Polish, right?
Yeah
Oliwia is Polish. She recorded a little section of the opening track
right at the beginning of the album sessions for me. I loved it so
much I had to open the album with it. It sets the tone right away.
This isn’t your average Doom album, there's something a little
different going on here.
What's about other
lyrics? What's it about? How would you sum up Kroh message or maybe
Kroh spirit?
The spirit of Kroh is
dark, haunting but accessible. Though that could change with the way
the new material is going. The lyrics all come from Oliwia, she has a
clear vision of where this is all going.
Kroh – Precious
Bones
I
guess that you care a lot about songs atmosphere, how careful indeed
were you writing all arrangements and these haunting effects?
That’s something that
we have wanted in our sound since the beginning. Added layers create
a world you can plug your headphones into and escape to.
I have a huge box of
effects and instruments I have collected from all over the place. I
grew up listening to a lot of weird 60s music, so I have always liked
the layering and ways you can make songs more atmospheric and dark
How do you see
stronger sides of Altars?
We are a lot different
live, we have added a new guitar player to the line up so we now have
more layers going on in our shows. This can only get better and
deeper the more we play
The
album was firstly released only in a digital format, but I see that
you also got “Altars” vinyl edition now. Who's the publisher?
The album came out on
CD, vinyl and on all digital outlets on the same day. It is released
on my own label Devizes. The vinyl has a slightly different mix, it
also has a different outro, as the whole project was designed for
vinyl from the beginning.
Do you have any
other releases planed for this year on Devizes?
Not at the moment,
other than the new Kroh material we are working on.
Paul you have
experience of playing with Fukpig and other pretty extreme bands. How
did it help you in your work with Kroh?
Years of playing in
extreme bands has helped a lot, I wanted to bring that into Kroh but
with a nice clear female voice over it. You can do a lot more with a
clear voice than you can with screaming. I have wanted to do music
like this for years, but was either too busy with other bands or I
didn’t know the right people. I think I'm in the right place with
the right people for once. And I'm very happy with it.
Let's resume - what
are your future plans for Kroh? New stuff? Gigs? Bigger tour?
We
have just played with Anaal Nathrakh, we have gigs booked with
Subrosa and Darkher coming up real soon, we are currently booking
gigs and working on new material, so we are going to be busy for a
long time yet.
Words
by Aleks Evdokimov and Paul Kenney
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