Label: Self released
Date: May 24th, 2023
So many interesting facts about this band to say. I don’t know where to start, but slowly I will get to the point.
When I saw the name Paracrona, my association was some symphonic metal band with opera-like vocals and effects of full orchestra as background melody. Not just because of the name, but because of the picture of members in serious suits and frontman Mr. Ringo Christiaan van Droffelaar who deadly reminds me of Bruno Mars in his younger days. Simply said, they look too much normal to be a real metal band.
My conclusion fell into water when I saw the logo of the band which suits some European chill rock band. You know those bands which can play on your wedding or some random new year’s party and similar occasions. With logo in a form of a golden star and pretty normal silver letters, no living person can say it’s a metal band, especially not a melodic black one. We have a TV musical show with some Serbian local music called “Zvezde Granda” (“Grand Stars”) that has a similar logo, so I literally got scared that maybe it’s not really metal at all. Not to get me wrong, this is pretty interesting, because we got used to those logos and covers specially made only for those bands, with corpse paint and inverted crosses, leather jackets, chains, etc… Really interesting move by Paracrona to explain to us in a simple way never to judge a book by its covers.
So, officially we got to the part of who they really are. Paracrona is a young melodic black metal band from Norway, the birth place of black metal. “Sun God” is their first full length. Before, they have one single called “Carry the Cross” which you can hear on this album as well. “New Impurity”, an acoustic intro opened the gates of the album and tricked me. They really are some symphonic metal but only for maybe one minute or less because the vocals of Mr. van Droffelaar definitely made me listen to the entire album at once. “Carry the Cross”, a famous biblical story in black metal version really made it scary more than it is. An official video made for this song describes its story vividly.
Even if we talk about black metal with some symphonic touches, you can’t trust that description, because this band really fits to some black / progressive band. More progressive than black, I must say, in my not so popular opinion. That uneven blast of drums and pentatonic scales on guitar only progressive musician can perform. It’s a perfection of melody and middle name of progressive metal, so Paracrona satisfies the criteria. Some seriously good musicians made this masterpiece of an album and even with their not-so-metal appearance, they rock the sky.
From the song “Thriller” through “Mendacious” to “River of Pain”, things are heating up and songs are getting even faster and more progressive. The atmosphere, all the time, is dark and mystical, even with acoustic breaks and intros. Definitely every songs has its own soul and in many moments you have a feeling they got out of the album and improvise live, especially in intros but growl always gets me back on the track.
“River of Pain” is definitely the queen of the album and its dark lyrics left me speechless. One really big plus for Paracrona is that I actually understand the words clearly even through screaming. Sometimes it’s not just possible to understand even the choir on repeat no matter how many times I listen to that song, but here they thought of that.
I am slowly approaching the end of the album with the song “Therefore I Move the Time”, which moves the Earth with its powerful blasting melody and “Reasons” which closes the gates of “Sun God”.
Paracrona is worth listening by every minute of the album and thanks for the lesson never to judge anything by its appearance. Because that classy appearance and “Bruno Mars hat” can really get you off the path. I hope this band won’t stop on this first album, because I know they can offer us more.
