adg211288 Escape of Pozoj is the second instalment of a trilogy of albums by Croatian avant-garde/progressive black metal act Johann Wolfgang Pozoj. The album was originally released back in 2009 but like the first album in the trilogy, Birth of Pozoj, has now been rerecorded and released in late 2011. Unlike the two versions of Birth of Pozoj which featured noticeable changes just by checking the track lists against each other the new version of Escape of Pozoj features an identical set of tracks, with more or less the same durations. I would hazard a guess that this means the band were more or less happy with the original album, which I haven’t heard, at least on the compositional front.

Unlike the two lengthy compositions that made up Birth of Pozoj what we have on Escape of Pozoj is four times as many tracks but all much shorter in duration, the exception being the closing Prstima Prelazim Preko Tvoga Tijela... which clocks in a thirteen and a half minutes, though this is still pretty far from the times of Birth of Pozoj’s Bellum Omnium Contra Omnes at 33:51 and Queen Emeraldas at 20:45. That’s what it looks like on the tin anyway, since the tracks transitions are so smooth that the end result sounds like a single track lasting a little under fifty minutes.

Escape of Pozoj, like Birth of Pozoj, has not got the most ‘out there’ sound for something described as being avant-garde, in fact for the most part I’d rather label Johann Wolfgang Pozoj’s music as progressive rather than avant-garde. The music is in the same vein as Birth of Pozoj, which means some traditional black metal rawness to the guitars but with some riffs that don’t really fit the black metal mould and inclusion of ambient parts, which start off the album in this case. The ambient parts are one of the best features in Escape of Pozoj in my opinion, successfully creating a dark atmosphere for the music better than the raw riffs and black metal growls.

As a thematic sequel to Birth of Pozoj Escape of Pozoj succeeds in sounding like a direct continuation of the first album, and I expect the currently forthcoming final instalment Return of Pozoj will do the same, making them sound like one really long album. The quality of Escape of Pozoj is totally on par with Birth of Pozoj to the point that I really can’t call which of them is the superior album. That means that Escape of Pozoj is a solid release that I expect will have a wide appeal among metal fans. I’m not looking forward to hearing the final instalment of the trilogy, Return of Pozoj, the only one of the three than has not been released before, which is currently slated for a 2012 release.

(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven, scored at 8.4/10)

UMUR "Birth of Pozoj (Trilogy Part 1)" is a completely re-arranged and re-recorded version of Croatian experimental extreme metal act Johann Wolfgang Pozoj´s debut full-length studio album "Birth of Pozoj (2007)" and as the title suggests the first part of a triology. The album was released in May 2011 by Code666. Both part one and two ("Escape of Pozoj (2009)") were originally independently released in very limited number of copies but the band were picked up by Italian label Code666 and offered a deal to re-arrange and re-record the first two albums and of course also to release the third part of the triology when that is finished.

The music on "Birth of Pozoj (Trilogy Part 1)" is rooted in black metal, but the music is by no means "regular" sounding black metal. There are as many progressive, ambient, atmospheric and goth rock/ metal (I´m detecting a Moonspell influence here) elements in the music as there are black metal elements. The vocals are occassionally raspy and raw but lead vocalist Ivan Borcic also whispers, talks and sings using a clean voice.

"Birth of Pozoj (Trilogy Part 1)" only features two tracks but they are respectively 33:51 and 20:45 minutes long and not surprisingly progressive in structure. Some parts seem to be repeated but not many and the two tracks very much feel like developing tracks rather than a bunch of shorter tracks put together to form longer tracks, which isn´t an unusual way of composing longer tracks. That ends up being both an intriguing feature but also an issue as very few of the sections are memorable and too many sections become repetitive or simply overstay their welcome. I miss intense emotions, power and conviction. The band obviously have many great ideas but they are simply not executed very well.

...much has to do with a rather tame and powerless sound production though. I´m a bit amazed that the band went through all that work to re-arrange and re-record the album and ended up with a production that honestly sounds a bit amateurish. Call it organic and authentic but I´m not impressed. Add to that the fact that at least one of the guitars are out of tune, this just comes off as sloppy.

So all in all there are several features on "Birth of Pozoj (Trilogy Part 1)" that I´m not too happy about, and I can´t say it´s an album I´ll take out very often for listening pleasure. Viewed upon objectively it´s not a complete failure though and especially the band´s adventurous approach to songwriting is something I appreciate. Before I´m hooked they will need to write more memorable material, tune their guitars and pursuade Code666 to pay for a better sound production for their next album. A 2.5 star rating is warranted.

J-Man In light of their recent signing with prestigious metal label code666, Croatian avant-garde black metal act Johann Wolfgang Pozoj has decided to re-record their debut full-length album, Birth of Pozoj. Rather than simply remastering the album for the release, the band has "re-arranged, re-thinked, and re-recorded" Birth of Pozoj, as they intend on soon doing for the rest of the "Pozoj trilogy". Although I am currently unacquainted with the rest of the band's material - including the original version of Birth of Pozoj - I do know that this is one damn good album, and surely among one of the more impressive avant-garde black metal releases I've heard recently. This album consists of two exceptionally long songs, one exceeding the 33-minute mark, yet it remains interesting the entire time through. Birth of Pozoj is one of the most unique black metal albums I've heard in a long time, and people who enjoy black metal on the more progressive and experimental side should find plenty to love here.

Johann Wolfgang Pozoj really defies characterization on this record. Although you could say it's rooted in black metal, the clean vocal sections, progressive song structures, varied instrumentation, and ambient portions really make this a tough one to pin down. I'll stick with a loose "experimental black metal" tag, but even that isn't doing them much justice. Birth of Pozoj is a truly unique album, and the fact that it also manages to amaze with its tremendous compositions as well is admirable. Although I'd say the near-34 minute "Bellum Omnium Contra Omnes" is slightly more interesting than the near-21 minute "Queen Emeraldas", both are beautiful songs that serve as stunning rides through the darkest depths of human emotion - and there are plenty of awesome riffs here too, by the way. Birth of Pozoj will take quite a few listens to "sink in", but it's a really remarkable observation once you give it the attention it deserves. I wouldn't let the long compositions and weird, dissonant riffs scare you away after first listen.

One small complaint of mine about Birth of Pozoj is related to the production. Although not detrimental, it sounds a bit thin to these ears, and the occasional technical "hiccup" - most likely related to the quality of my promo copy - doesn't help either. The retail version may sound higher quality than the version I'm listening to, but there's no way for me to judge that right now.

All in all, Johann Wolfgang Pozoj really ended up exceeding my expectations with Birth of Pozoj. The band's unique take on avant-garde black metal is remarkable, and the way they manage to portray this through beautiful songwriting and varied instrumentation makes this one a winner on nearly every front. If you have eclectic tastes when it comes to black metal, I'd say this is a highly-recommendable purchase. 3.5 - 4 stars are very well deserved, and I'll be extremely curious to hear where Johann Wolfgang Pozoj takes this intriguing trilogy in the future.

The Block “The Birth of Pozoj” was Johan Wolfgang Pozoj’s first album that the band released in 2007. The most recently they released another album titled the same way and featuring two songs from the earlier album: “Bellum Omnium Contra Omnes” and “Queen Emeraldas”. The only difference is that is was totally re-worked and re-recorded, so it was basically a completely different album.

Since this album only has two songs many people would believe that it would be relatively short. If I were to tell them it’s longer than a 10 track album they would think me insane, right? Well it is. Featuring a 20 minute song and a 30 some minute song, this album is almost an hour long! Originally the band had 5 songs on the first release but cut it down to two, and I quite like that since I don’t know if I want to sit through almost two hours of atmospheric black metal. Now onto what people actually want to know about, the music.

“The Birth of Pozoj” is a completely atmospheric black metal album which features great playing and wonderful dark passages. “Bellum Omnium Contra Omnes” is a great song, and has very good flow to it. Starting off slow and deep it eventually builds and builds to a monster of a song. You can really tell the almost avant-garde approach to this album in this song especially, and sometimes the conflicting time signatures are really cool. When the growls come in there is a nice change in the music and the guitar riffs become shorter and more prevalent. The growls are exceptional, especially mixed with Marko Balaban and Filip Fabek’s guitar playing. The end of “Bellum Omnium Contra Omnes” is probably my favorite part of the album because of its dark and rich guitar riffs.

The last song, “Queen Emeraldas” starts off much more upbeat but soon transfers back into the dark tones that ended the first song. The growls on this song are also very well preformed by Ivan Borcic. The production of this album isn’t really polished, but at the same time it isn’t that raw style that some may expect from black metal.

“The Birth of Pozoj” is a wonderful album that any fan of Burzum, or older black metal will enjoy thoroughly. Featuring great guitar playing, and very good growls Johan Wolfgang Pozoj have definitely found their way to the top of black metal with this release which gets 3.5 stars from me.

adg211288 Birth of Pozoj was the debut album from Croatian black metal band Johann Wolfgang Pozoj. It was originally released independently by the band in 2007, but it has now been re-released in 2011 as a completely reworked and rerecorded version. Conceptually Birth of Pozoj is the first of a trilogy, and is followed by Escape of Pozoj and Return of Pozoj. The second album, Escape of Pozoj, was also released prior to this new version of Birth of Pozoj which actually makes this Johann Wolfgang Pozoj’s third studio album to date. The third part has never been released in any form but now that the band is signed to a label, the three parts are intended to be released year by year. But that’s enough on the history lesson; onto the music we go.

Birth of Pozoj 2011 only has two tracks, in contrast to the original 2007 version which had five. The total time of the album has been cut down a bit but these two tracks still total a time of almost an hour, being 33:57 and 20:51 in length respectively. I haven’t actually heard the band’s original take on Birth of Pozoj but maybe that’s for the best since I can write this review with a clear perspective, although I certainly have interest in hearing it after the event.

Now onto the music itself - for real this time. The band is, at their core, a black metal act, and they favour plenty of melody in their music, and while the music doesn’t really have what I’d call a really polished production job, it’s not exactly a raw black metal style either, creating a sound somewhere in between raw and polished that really fits the music perfectly. You can tell as well without even listening to them that they aren’t going to be run of the mill black metal just because of those lengthy track times.

Johann Wolfgang Pozoj has a strong avant-garde influence in their music, which is characterised by some atypical sounds and a fondness for experimentation. The end result isn’t actually the most ‘out there’ avant-garde fuelled metal I ever heard in terms of overall weirdness, but it does keep the album interesting as they band has some really good melodic ideas that you wouldn’t normally hear in a standard black metal album and it’s actually about eight minutes into the first of the two tracks before you’ll even begin to hear some of the black metal styled growls that hint at their extreme core. The vocals alternate between those growls and some cleans, which come across like some sort of ritual chanting at times, creating a good atmosphere for the parts of the record where they are used. The songs are done in a way that every so often it has a complete change in pace, which justices the long lengths, although there are also repetitions of ideas just to let you know you’re still on the same track. Despite the long track times and occasional repeating of sections (which is rare to be fair), the album never bores me. As a whole it is crafted especially well and it is immensely enjoyable.

One thing that I have especially liked about Birth of Pozoj is that even when the band starts getting heavy and the growls begin, their guitar riffs are not always typical black metal riffs, making the band sound pretty fresh, if not one hundred percent original. Other ideas included here are some ambient sounds which thrown a nice touch on the album for me. I have no favourite between the two tracks because they’re as good as each other, and due to the release being a concept album, they complement each other as well.

It took me a few listens to really take in Birth of Pozoj but I’m overall very pleased with this album, although for me it doesn’t quite make it into the masterpiece/classic album zone, though it only falls short by the smallest of margins. I expect that it will appeal to a wide range of metal fans and not just black or avant-garde metal. I can safely say that I can’t wait to hear the second instalment of this trilogy.