Ashes You Leave - "The Passage Back to Life" [1998]

Artist: Ashes You Leave

Title: The Passage Back To Life

Genre: Death/Doom Metal

Country: Croatia

Release date: 1998

Track List:

1. Salva Me (Intro)
2. The Passage Back to Life
3. Thorn of the Dead Flower
4. Drowning in My Dreams
5. Lay Down Alone
6. White Chains
7. Tears

Debut album of one of the lesser known death/doom metal bands from the 90s, which impressed me a lot back during my university years. Just like in case with many other such bands, they took on a more "soft" gothic metal style later on, but these attempts turn out to be rather boring (which may be one of the reasons why they remained relatively unknown outside of Eastern Europe). As for their early period, literally every review I've read compares them to MDB, and while this album is indeed very similar to "Turn Loose the Swans" by MDB, it certainly has its own atmosphere - not in the least due to the use of female vocals (sometimes in the "folk" manner), flute, and gypsy violin. Thanks to dark-world.ru for the link:

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Besthial - s/t EP [2011]

Artist: Besthial

Title: EP 2011

Genre: Melodic Death Metal

Country: Croatia
Year: 2011

Track List:

1. Silent Proclamation
2. Until I Bleed
3. Ashes

Bestial started as a power metal band in 2006, but after 5 years of playing together their music has become more MDM-oriented. If this EP is a self-released demo (and I guess it is), then it's quite good. If I'm not mistaken, both growls and clean vocals on this EP were performed by the same girl, who has a pretty distinctive way of singing.

According to the band's interview, the metal scene in Croatia is very good (the average quality of sonwriting and musicianship is high), but when it comes to the professional opportunities to get ahead (concert opportunities, etc.) - it's total shit. I can only hope that posting their demo here will be helpful for them at least a little bit.

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Johann Wolfgang Pozoj - "Birth of Pozoj" [2007]

Artist: Johann Wolfgang Pozoj

Title: Birth of Pozoj

Genre: Post-Metal, Avant-garde Black Metal

Country: Croatia
Year: 2007

Track List:

1. Bellum Omnium Contra Omnes
2. Queen Emeraldas
3. Autodistraktiv
4. Hisperia
5. Outro

"Johann Wolfgang Pozoj is an avant-garde black metal band from Croatia that came to existence in 2004 by merging of two “brother” bands - Intoxicate and Grob (Grave). The band’s name is derived from (pre) Indo-European myth about a dragon (Pozoj) and its later mythological and lingual derivations.
The first part of their opus is a Trilogy based on myth and the philosophical triad of thesis, antithesis and synthesis where those three phases represent the spirit becoming real through art.
The first album in the Trilogy – Birth of Pozoj represents the Trilogy’s symbolic phase where the idea hasn’t yet found its complete form, and the birth of the dragon (Pozoj) as a symbolic beginning of time flow. The album was released in 2006 via Progressive Attack Records"

I personally wouldn't even call their music "avant-garde black metal", because this album defies any attempts to label it. If you need labels - it's somewhere in between of epic crust (Fall of Efrafa etc.), post-metal, and progressive rock. Regardless of how you'd call it, the music is absolutely amazing, and the atmosphere it creates is great too. Definitely one of the best avant-garde metal albums to come out in the 2nd half of 2000's. It's also remarkable that the 2nd track is apparently inspired by Leiji Matsumoto's works, which I love too...

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