Mora Prokaza

Belarus' Mora Prokaza arrived on the metal scene in 2015, quickly releasing a pair of albums, the latter of which (2016's Dark Universe) shows the band firmly entrenched in mid-paced, above-average but relatively conventional second-wave black metal. But then came 2020's By Chance, throwing everyone for a loop, most of all those (like yours truly) who'd never heard of the band beforehand. At it's core, this is a trap album (for the uninitiated -- again, like yours truly --, picture a black metal vocalist doing rapid-fire rapping and you're halfway there), with sparse but varying backing instrumentalization -- black elements from their past can be found, but they're just that, fringe elements that are part of a bigger picture, and that picture (the album as a whole) is not a black metal album. But it is baffling, haunting, surely offputting to some while quite intriguing to others.

Where does the band go from here? By Chance is so experimental and one-off-sounding that it seems unlikely that they'll continue down this path. Even if they return to a more conventional black metal style, Mora Prokaza has to be given credit for producing one of the oddest albums in recent memory.

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Discography

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