Wojnar "Epos O Woju Z Krainy Mrozem Spowitej" CD

Ambient/folk in a bath of autenticity from this Polish one-man-band run by ex-Sorrow Filled member Wojnar. Mature and atmospheric.

As cold winds blow over the frozen winter landscape, one of Poland’s favourite pagan sons returns with another slab of pagan folk/ambient music and it’s musically more varied than any of his previous stuff. Wojnar seems to have matured during the years he was composing this album. While synth is still an important part of Wojnar’s music, there is a lot more guitar overall this time around. Most of the time the guitars are clean but some tracks also have a distorted guitar added, thereby bringing in a metal influence.
While almost all tracks of this album feature guitar, there are a couple of tracks which are ambient such as e.g. “Smutec Nocy”, “Łza Jak Deszczu Kropla” and “Dźwięk Zwycięstwa”. “Dźwięk Zwycięstwa” also happens to be the only really bad track on the album, it simply repeats the same keyboard melody throughout the whole track and that gets boring.
The atmosphere this album creates is very strongly pagan, that should go without saying. This is the story of ancient battles, bravery, the taking of oaths, loyalty, blood, tears… and probably sweat too, ha. The music paints very strong images in my mind, I feel like I’m actually there, watching everything unfold. There’s the sound of a winter storm between all the tracks (as well as in the beginning and at the end of the album), so the cold feeling doesn’t stop until the very end. On some tracks multiple vocal tracks have been used, which increases the power of the vocals. One good example of this is “Krew Z Ognia I Lodu”, where the main vocal track is accompanied by two additional ones that sing a couple of lines in a choir like fashion. Overall the vocals are good on this album, Wojnar’s voice varies from calm narration and clean singing to occasional angry outbursts.
On some of his earlier releases Wojnar had a bit of trouble conveying the right atmosphere but there are no such problems on this album. I think “Epos O Woju Z Krainy Mrozem Spowitej” excellently combines a melancholic feeling of longing with both a heroic and defiant vibe. The production is clear and there’s quite a lot of reverb on both the instruments and vocals, which helps to create quite a big sound. One thing that could perhaps have been done differently, could have been the use of acoustic guitars instead of clean electric ones for the folky guitar parts but this doesn’t matter that much. It sounds good enough this way too.
Except for “Dźwięk Zwycięstwa”, the song writing is great and the folk tracks such as “Krew Z Ognia I Lodu”, “Prastara Pieśń O Mrozie Minionym”, “Znak Orła Białego” and “Pieśń O Powrocie” would certainly do well on the pagan folk charts if there would be such a thing. These songs are damn catchy and make the listener want to sing along even though he or she doesn’t understand the lyrics. Perfect for a night around the campfire! Halfway though the album we encounter its darkest track, “Smutec Nocy”. A very sombre keyboard piece, it gives me visions of dark clouds gathering in the sky over a battlefield full of corpses after yet another pagan battle. “Łza Jak Deszczu Kropla” takes a peek into the past by featuring more “upbeat” piano parts in the vein of what can be found on the “Jam Synem…” demo. However, this track also has a majestic choir synth in the background, which balances out the more cheerful mood brought on by the piano. The way this track ends with sweeping synths that fade into the sound of a storm is great. “Epos O Woju Z Krainy Mrozem Spowitej” is an album that’s made with great conviction and spirit. In the booklet Wojnar mentions that he gave up many times when writing these tracks, as he wasn’t satisfied with the material. Well, I sure am glad that he eventually managed to record this stuff, since the outcome is excellent. This is the sound of perseverance!

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