Six cyclonic bat-winged flaps of plagued intent spread a coming curse of pestilence across this doubly capable sophomore full-length album from Košice, Slovakia-based black metal quintet OTRAS. Known for their punk-attenuated beginnings but now stabbing deeper into the black metal riff the band’s work expands into threatening skies throughout ‘Na Krídlach Morovida‘. Expanding into slightly more complexly lain dual guitar composition manifests a mountainous leap for the band here but they’ve not left behind their rawly gnashing sound in the process of refinement.

Otras swarmed together as a quartet in 2020 between folks known (then/now) for black metal projects Agnustek and Bätlick as well as one fellowe from death metal crew Cancer Void. Aiming for their own brand of raw punk inspired black metal their first demo tape (‘Demo‘, 2021) was a rehearsal grade mid-paced menace, balking its way through simple punk progressions and halfway formed ideas. They’d found their shambling, out of step black metal groove on a self-titled EP (‘Otras‘, 2021) soon after though their riffcraft was extremely limited in step and interest in shoddy-as-possible capture was louder than any potentially clever musical ideas. Mushy distorted bass, effects cracked vocals would persist in generation of the scald of their second EP (‘Cintorín Blues‘, 2022) and that is probably the best place for the listener to start with their discography in seeking precedence for style beyond nascent wandering.

The most clear precedence for what ‘Na Krídlach Morovida‘ transcends beyond today comes via Otras‘ debut LP (‘Čas karhať‘, 2024) where garage punk wheeling rhythms informed more elaborately snarled-out black metal pieces. Their style wasn’t as intimately dark as Arnaut Pavle nor as tuneful as Gabestok but offered a more malodorous, scraped out relative in spirit and function. That first record served to make concrete what the band had developed in tight formation since the pandemic years but by ~2025 they’d swapped their original guitarist with two folks, members of thrashers Black Light and Mörghuul, and this’d profoundly (but not completely) transformed both the possibilities afforded their craft and the capability of their efforts. Expect a next stage of performance and compositional vision on this second album alongside revised production values which yet pierce the ear but provide greater expanse and precision nonetheless.

One could argue Otras version one were built on pure vibes and ragged-ass rawblack sound design (or lack thereof) when there’d been a sort of campiness to their take on black metal but with ‘Na Krídlach Morovida‘ their haunt takes on a more serious tone to some degree, tweaking the ratio toward the riff in the process. Upon first impression, via opener “Kropiť Polia Jedom”, the expectation built from the black metal/punk tag backfired a bit in skull as we find scaling dual-guitar black metal riffcraft laced together in its opening stalk. This, paired with the best showing from the rhythm section to date, made a surprising first impression as cunningly writ “atmospheric” black metal in wrathful tradition. “Kríže” turns the tables back toward a rocking stomp a bit but the quintet version of the band now appears as legion, hotly slung guitar solos and all, compared to the rugged garage level bite of prior efforts.

Otherwise the nearly eight minute stretch of “Oči v Tŕní / Spevy z Roklín” is the first to find its punk-black bap as a point of focus as the piece burns into its second part. The boon offered to Otras‘ efforts via their dual guitarist setup becomes abundantly clear as worming riffs and horrifying leads generate chaotic, headache inducing scrawl and atmospheric dissent throughout its course. Album closer “Kosti Mŕtvych Neradno Obracať” likewise carries some of the band’s old Darkthrone-esque black metalpunk spirited movement but the point to make here is that they’ve escaped the auto-pilot punk rhythms for far greater capability of authorship and performance across the board.

The pieces that’d stuck in mind longest here tended toward the riff-driven spectrum, either nods to classic forms or arrangements which’d built upon the tension introduced by “Kropiť Polia Jedom”. Side B in particular caught my ear via the short and barreling “Obrí Muž” and the sinister march through “Pieseň Troch Mŕch”. The bounding momentum of ‘Na Krídlach Morovida‘ loses little of its steam within its steadier paced pieces, the most coherent approach to moderate variety Otras‘ve managed to date, before smartly calling it nearby the half hour mark and avoiding overexposure to their howling radiation. Trading up toward diabolic competence and away from the rabid clumsiness that’d characterized their earlier efforts turns out to be a fantastic barter for the band as this more substantive and menacing form feels like a true step into the dark. A moderately high recommendation.

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