Wiatyk – Mysticism [Demo / Re-Release]

I won’t pretend I knew Wiatyk before I laid eyes on the recent reissues of the band’s only two demo tapes (by Diabolical Vitriol and Pro Morte). In my defense, the two demos came out in the mid-90’s, this first one in 1995 to be exact, and have actually not been reissued before recently, besides that, the lineup is unknown and a search of my own doesn’t really yield anything. In short: very few leads. So we can’t speak of real classics or the like here, but the music is a textbook example of what we can call “classic Polish Black Metal”.

While both demos display quite a rough-edged sort of Black Metal, ‘Mysticism’ in particular is a raw, piercing piece of Black Metal that is as unpolished (no pun intended) as they appeared at the time. Polish Black Metal, especially back in those mid-90’s years, was predominantly an movement that seemed to stay as far away from the more sophisticated Norwegian Black Metal or the fast version of the genre that was mainly helmed by the Swedish. It was free from the more “romantic” atmosphere from the Scandinavians and less occult than the Greek; Polish Black Metal is mean and ugly.

‘Mysticism’ fits perfectly within that frame, it is indeed mean and ugly. Not quite your easy listening Black Metal, on the very contrary. In just under 20 minutes, this first Wiatyk demo shows that this is actually a textbook example of how Polish Black Metal sounded back in those days. Extremely sharp in guitar sound, simple drums and an icy vocal delivery – all poured in a captivating, non-hyper blast mold.

I don’t dare say much about the impact these two demos had on the Polish scene at the time, but it’s certainly refreshing to hear something different from the usual work of Graveland or Behemoth. It may not have the same allure, but ‘Mysticism’ for sure is a valuable piece of Black Metal history, maybe not so much in name, but at least in execution of an underrated type of Black Metal.