Interview with death metal band from Poland - BAALZAGOTH.
Answered Asmodeus (bass), thank you!
Recenze/review - BAALZAGOTH - No God, No Savior (2026):
Ave BAALZAGOTH! I’m currently listening to your new album, “No God, No Savior,” and I can’t shake the feeling that I’m at an evil black mass. You play death metal steeped in black metal, and this is your second full-length album. Can you tell us how the new record came together and in what direction you wanted to move from your excellent previous releases? Did you want to be even faster, darker, more devilish?
Asmodeus: Hello Jakub, first of all thanks for having us! We appreciate your interest in our music and the invitation to the interview. You know, we always call our music death metal, this is how we see it. But we cannot escape the „blackened“ adjective for obvious reasons, the way we look, the lyrical side, maybe even some riffing indeed are giving this black sort of sauce. The second album was created in a different way than the first one. Our debut „Morbid Persecutions“ was written by the band together, while „No God, No Savior“ was more composer-oriented, what I mean is that most of the songs (the music) were written by Veles, the lead guitarist, one by Vultur, the drummer, one by Camasothz, the other guitar man, and one by me. But of course, when the songs are being rearranged from single guitar riff ideas to the final song, so the whole band contributed to the way the songs sound like in the end.
Also this time we did not record everything in one studio, trying to save on the logitsics and technical aspects we recorded the quitars in another studio, also advised by our producer we pick yet a different studio to record the drums – where the main drive was the sound. Looking on the final sound, we are happy with the result. We also hope the audience will like the album too.
The direction was also clear, and it is exactly the way you put it, we wanted it to sound heavier and stronger, be more dynamic, a bit faster, emotional and mad. We still have some slower and spacy moments on the album, but overall it is definitely faster, angrier and more cosistent.
You know what literally hit me right in the face? The sound on the new record. It’s organic, gritty the album has a black spark to it. In this day and age of over-amplified and compressed formats, it’s a real breath of fresh air. To me, this is what true hell sounds like! Please tell me where and how you recorded? How did you achieve this sound?
Unlike on the first album, where the sound was first designed and the recording took place in the second step, the amped guitars sound coming out of the cabinets into the recording microphones, this time we recorded raw unamped guitars firs, and then the guitars were re-amped.
The reamping was done by Heinrich House Studio by Filip Hałucha, the sound of the guitars is his work. But even more importantly he did the mix - being one of the best producers out there the effect could not be anything less than fucking good. He’s worked with some of the biggest names in the industry, his experience and expertise is outstanding. We left the sound completely with him and it was a good decision.
I’m exactly the kind of old-school fan who approaches music in such a way that if I like an album, I buy both the CD and the T-shirt. I have to say, the cover art for this year’s album is really well done. This is pretty much how I imagine real hell. Can you tell us how you chose the artwork, who created it, and how it relates to the music?
Respect to you for that, Jakub! The album cover is a long history of ideas, developments and turns. In the beginning the album’s title was „Unholy Inquisition“ and the artwork was aimed to be similar to the first one by style. But then Oktavius (vocals) decided that we have to do something else, and since nobody opposed (there is no opposition in this band haha) he took this on his shoulders. A couple of years ago we had a photoshoot session with a professional photographer – Maciej Pieloch. One of the photos was Oktavius holding a skull in his left hand and a fire torch in his right hand. The hand holding the skull with some crosses in the background seemed a good motive, and actually when you open the CD cover you see the whole photo. My wife put it together, added our logo, we eperimented with the light, shade, added some dirt and here we go. It was not as simple as described, haha, Oktavius let some versions to be printed on paper first, before we decided on the final version. And it is symbolic too – the skull means there is nothing after you die, but your leftovers, the crosses in the background are symbolizing the lie. And the title... everything seems to work well together, providing one consisten concept.
How do you actually create new music? What does the process of creating new material look like? Do you have trouble agreeing on things? After all, experience can sometimes be a hurdle. You know, egos and all that.
Haha, that’s a good point! I think we are more easy here than in some other bands. The music is written by the guitarists, despite I play bass I also record some motives to share, sometimes whole songs, we record our ideas on computers, then add some electronically generated drums and share to have others comment on it, exchange ideas etc. Before Veles (the main composer) was a very young and inexperience bloke, so we had to tweak on his compostions a lot. With the second album most of what he created remained in its original form – his music awareness is much higher today. So once we pick the songs or motives we meet in the rehearsal room and work on it – Vultur designs drums by himself. Also in his case it is different, you know he was 11 when he recorded „Morbid Persecutions“ he needed indications at the time. Today, he is creating the drum parts on his own. A finished song is never fixed forever, sometimes when playing it 10th time we come to a conculsion that we have to change something.
The only difficult points I remember is when some riff is created and the composer says „this must be like this, you cannot touch it“, and then Camasothz or me are playing him some Mayhem or Behemoth telling him – this CANNOT stay like this because someone played it exactly this way 20 years ago haha.
For me, the Polish death metal scene has always been associated with a certain darkness. Even as a young guy, I was fascinated by the references to Satanism—that filth and decay that you could sense in your bands’ music. How did you end up gravitating toward this particular style?
Now this is a very broad topic. There are quite a few approaches to satanism, whoever is interested in it, will know. Our satanism is anti-church oriented. Our satan is us – ourselves, people who oppose to what institutionalized religion is doing to people. We are of an opinion that religion was created by bad people who understood that this way they can control the minds of other people This way they can rule others and gain wealth. Just look at the church: land, immobilities, money... There is no god in this, there is nothing good about it. Fat priests talking bullshit living off the people who do not understand, but believe. Is there an easier job? The wealth, politicial influence, orders and prohibitions, deciding about how people should live their life. We say „fuck no“ to this. The church, one big lie raises anger in our heads and the music is our reaction to this. Our message is: don’t let them rule your mind, be free, do what you want, decide about yourself, speak out your thoughts, be your own judge. There will be no final jugdement performed by any sort of tribunal, there will be no punishment if you follow your way no sonsequences if you do not listen to those bastards. There is no god and there will be no savior.
I’d be curious to know what the music scene is like in Poland these days. How did you get into music, and who was your role model? What about your scene, clubs, and fans?
Oh, the scene in Poland is vast. There are som many bands playing various sub-genres of metal. It is very interesting and rich, you can for sure find something for yourself. The more radical genres are in my opinion dominated by black metal, which is the the most popular genre of them all. Death metal is behind, thrash metal is now reappearing more and more but also behind black metal. I think so based on obsercations of the albums released, concers etc. This is just my observations, I don’t complain. Believe it or not but black metal is not my music. I do listen to it, I do appreciate the bands, but it is just not my bread.
I started listening to metal when I was around 11 years old. When even a yournger kid, I heard my mom’s listening to Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppeling, The Doors, Janis Joplin, even Motorhead. Then some friends played Metallica, and that was it, I was into this music. I am talking aboout the end of the 80s, then of course Slayer, I think the best band in the world. Tom Araya and Jeff Hannemann were my role models.
Many metal bands play in small to medium size clubs, where the audience is antyhing from 15 to 150. We usually play for audiences between 60 to 120. We cannot expect more because this is how this scene works. There are so many bands, so many concerts that sometimes people are over-fed, I think. Again: I am not complaining, just stating the facts. You just cannot go to a metal concerts 8 times a month, it is just too much and there are probably also financial restrictions. Imagine playing in a big city where bunch of people spent 150 € to attend a „bigger“ concert and then there are another 6 underground concerts in small clubs. This is specifically the case for the summer period, where open air festivals are making local club gigs not worth to look at. Everyone understands this and now all bands focus to organize club gigs in the Autumn and Spring, which ends up in good club booking but also makes it more complex for bands to organize their shows – the booking needs to be done like 6 months ahead an more.
The way things work hardly let you cover your spendings. The underground metal scene is something that costs you to play, if with current venue prices, sound engineering services, fuel prices you are able to cover your costs – you are lucky. When we playd in Soulkostel, in Vernerovice in CZ, I spoke to a guy, also Jakub haha, who told me he got done with his band because it makes no sense to play for 10-15 people. To do this you actually need a lot of motivation and effort, and be prepared to lose money. We do it for the need of artistic expression, so we are ready to fight these windmills.
Your lyrics are also very dark. That’s obviously part of death metal, and I like it, but I’d be interested in the origin and creation of the lyrics. How did the lyrics for the new album come about? What are they about?
Funny enough, the lyrics for „No God, No Savior“ were written separately without the general thought of following a certain pattern. By occasion, they all came out anti-religious. The song titles often self explain the lirycs. „True Messiah“ is basically saying that there is no other real messiah but you and me. „Satan“ – we call is name, we call the opposer from the inside of our minds. „Behemoth“ about a huge beast that covers up the sun and leaves us in darkess. „Excommunicatus ab Humanitate“ is where one is excomunicated from humanity by people having no rights to do so. „Gloria Apostasiae“ – where the next bunch of words goes „Gloria Libertati Mentis“ so it’s about free mind. And so on. I mean I am oversimplifying a lot here, but I don’t want to make this part too boring. I think it tastes best when you hear it alongside the music. Most lyrics were written by Oktavius and myself, one rough drafted by Camasothz. The lirycs come from the dark depths of our minds, through the hand armed in a pen, onto the piece of paper. Like they did it in the old days haha.
Throughout the history of metal, there have been many instances where certain bands were banned because they were shocking or held views that differed from those of mainstream society. Have you ever had any problems? In today’s internet age, it’s incredibly easy to immediately condemn someone, spread a rumor, and destroy them.
Yes, of course, we know some instances. Once I even organized a gig headlining a band whose last two shows before ours were cancelled because of excaclty what you are saying. After this gig we received a few messages from people, I think one american wrote to us „if you play with such bands then you are not going to be welcome“ or something like this. I do realize that there are political views or worldviews that do not allow some people to cooperate or accept art of other people with different views. And I must say I am personally OK with that. I mean let’s all have our views and express our art in our areas, not necessarily coming over one another. I mean there is enough room for all of us, right?
We had some problems with accusations over insult to religious feelings. We played a festival last summer where we set some stage decorations alight. Let’s call it two pieces of wood constructed into an installation that might have resembled crosses haha. This was a performance during our instrumental song Auto-da-Fe in the context of the holy inquisition and its consequences. Of course some catholics didn’t like it and they motivated local politicians and even a big religious organization to start prosecution proces against us, it is ongoing.
The good news is that 2 months later we perofrmed in the church in Czechia. Man I love your country!
Have you had to change your approach to music in any way due to new technologies? Thanks to the internet, the world is completely different; bands have to approach everything in a completely different way. How do you perceive these changes?
I don’t think we had to change our approach to music when it comes to playing gigs. We are basically working with the same set up I used in the beginning of 90s, when I played with my first band. It’s been 30 years! But of course there are areas which are seriously affected: first the recording – it looks completely different today than in the past. But of course the quality of music is higher too. I think the worst situation is in distribution of music – it’s all digitalized. I always try not to criticize the changes which are the result of the world moving forward, as it is something you cannot do much about. However it is a real pity it takes so long to sell 500 CDs when you record an album. People stream music and then it is difficult to get paid for it. We are not greedy, but I must honestly say, recording an album in a professional studio is a costly adventure and it would be really nice if it could get anywhere near getting paid back for this. Also, not to have this money, but to invest it into merch, next album, or some farther trips to gigs.
How are things going with BAALZAGOTH’s concerts? I saw that you’ve already played here in the Czech Republic how did you like it here? Are you interested in a European tour, for example? I could imagine you sharing the stage with bands like POSSESSED or DEICIDE; they come here pretty often.
We were supposed to play in CZ, invited by a Czech band Okult, but beause of some complications we could not come. We hve just played in this church called Soulkostel near the village Vernerovice, what an awesome place! Then we are playing one more gig in Jaromer, invitation came from Dysangelium this time and we will have the pleasure to share stage with them and other Czech legends – Tortharry. The gig is headined by Benediction.
After this one experience in Soulkostel I repeat what I said: I love your coutry! I hope we will come back to play in Czechia some more shows.
The question of European tours is not easy – first of all it is costly, and secondly we have our professional obligations, we are not professional musicians, we have our families and jobs. But we are open for any invitations, so let’s hope we could reach our fans in Germany and other countries soon too.
What does death metal and black metal mean to you? How would you define them, and how do you perceive these styles as an experienced musician? I don’t want you to describe your playing technique; I’m more interested in your perspective, your feelings, the energy you convey, and so on. Try being a philosopher for a moment.
I need to first state that I am not a good reviewer of the scene, because my intersests have never been too broad haha.
It happened by chance that I said a lot on this when aswering previous questions. Black metal has gotten an really big and vast genre with all the subgenres and its rich history. I perosnally was into black metal at the time when it was formed: Venom, Celtic Frost, maybe early Samael. When it developed into this specific way of riffing and had this sort of space it somehow became less interesting for me. I have always been into thrash-death mostly. I must honestly say that I am suprised black metal became so popular, it would even dare to name it as a prevailing genre in the underground metal music. At least looking at the scene from my perspective. And I am absolutely positive on this, let there be black metal and let black metal develop even more. I also hear a lot of people complaining about the more modern subgenres of black metal, where the lyrical zone and also the compositions go off the core or the „way how black metal should be constructed“ as some would say. I am aboslutely open to anything, art is art, music is music, fuck boundaries and limitations.
Death metal on the other hand is my history – when I was a young lad I was super happy to see the bands radicalize thir music, develop riffing styles etc. From early Slayer, through Sodom, Death, Obituary, Morbid Angel, Bolt Thrower, Benediction, all the Swedish bands... This is my wolrd! So as for me, it is all about the sound and they way riffs are constructed, it somehow fits my taste. I would like to mention on this occassion that the Czech band Okult and their last album „God of Genocide“ is the definition of death metal I truly adore.
What does BAALZAGOTH have planned for the coming months? If you have a message for fans, labels, or promoters, this is the place…
We plan to play some gigs, I think we are booked for something like 6 shows between today and January. We are not up to playing too often. We are assessing every incoming proposal, so if by reading this you thought you might want to invite Baalzagoth to a show, do not hesitate to hit us up via messenger, or email. Most probably we will take a brake between March and May because Vulur, our young drummer is taking his matura exam, he will need the time to focus on this threshold to move on in his life.
Thank you very much for the interview. I really appreciate that you took the time for our site. I wish your entire band plenty of hellish inspiration, sold records, and enthusiastic fans. May you also thrive in your personal lives. I hope to see you live someday.
Jakub, thank YOU for having me. I see you put some effort into these questions, so this was a really interesting interview. Thank you for your good word on our music, thank you for the wishes and I am sure we meet live one day, sooner or later. All the best, Brother!
Recenze/review - BAALZAGOTH - No God, No Savior (2026):
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