PANYCHIDA is a band Black Metal band from Czech Republic that was formed in 2004 and released a lot of albums, toured around the world and developed the genre in Czech and Europe. They have recently released their newest album "Gabreta Aeterna" through Folter Records and that is what we are going to talk about.

The opening track from the album is "Krajina" which is a speech in Czech. "Bilý Samum" starts with fast melodic Black Metal riffs and the vocals comes right in, then it changes it guitars and drums something more traditional. I liked the guitar sound and vocals. There are some backing vocals on the song that helped creating a tense mood, and a female scream as well.

"Nikohopán, nikohosluha" starts out with a Heavy Metal guitar riff and a guitar solo, which surprised me. They managed to put Black Metal into a Heavy Metal riffin' guitars and that is cool. There is a very nice part with a guitar solo and some duets, really Power Metal. Such a nice song. "Černou nocí míhá se černý stín" that song starts with an instrumental that could easily be on a Folk Metal band and I loved it. That is a very dynamic song, and I can't say more... just that I loved it.

"V dnešní zbahnělé době" is an instrumental song with a speech on it. "Trampus - o samotě a smrti v odlehlých končinách" starts with a very nice melodic guitar lick and clean vocals, then it turns into a Power Metal guitar, bass and drums session with guttural vocals. That is a quality song. "Válečná běsnění" starts with a beautiful orchestra and what seens to be a knock or punch in something. That song is progressive and it slowly grows into you, until you catch yourself completely immersed in the sound.

"Abele" starts With an incredible Melodic Death Metal instrumental and then it mix with Black Metal, creating a very nice ambiance. It is cool to see how these guys can add different elements to a song and still sound good, and all tied together. The end of the song is pure epicness. "Bludné ohně na stráních Hirschensteinských" starts with a tense and dark instrumental, then there are a child choirs that will give you goosebump. It is an instrumental song. "Odkouzlení hvozdu Hercynského" starts with a beautiful bass followed by some clean guitar tones, that will soon turn into distorted and melodic riffs. The bass and drums here are very creative. You will find everything on that song, from Black Metal to Power Metal and very explicit both genres.

"Todesmarsch" starts with raven and birds singing and a clean guitar that slowly turns into a distorted one. There are some different vibe here, it has both clean and guttural vocals singing a duet and the the riffs are the kinds that are going to make you bang your head. Such a great song.

"Totenbretter" is the song that closes the album. It starts with a child speech, then some orchestra comes in and a dark and deep voice speech joins in. That song is dark, melodic and has a great chorus. I liked how they used keyboards here, it gave a different dynamic to the song.

PANYCHIDA have written and released a great album that mix a lot of different Metal genres on it, but they all sound tied together. I'm impressed by how creative these guys are and I sincerely think that they deserve a big 10.