Band:	Mora Prokaza
Album:	By Chance
Style:	Trap, Avantgarde metal, Black metal
Release date:	July 2020

01. WIMG
02. I'm Not Yours
03. Check It
04. I'm A Human
05. I See It This Way
06. Madonna
07. Be There
08. Sorry Man
09. Blacker Than Black

That trap really tied the black together, did it not?

When Mora Prokaza revealed the full stream of their latest release, By Chance, they also added the following comment: "The album is not an experiment, but the result of interweaving of environment, cultures, attitude and personal preferences. This is self-development and moving forward in what you do. The main thing to understand is that people in Eastern Europe make music just because they want to make music. People here do not make money on music. They make music. And this is the most important thing in the album and in a whole music creation."

Mora Prokaza used to be a conventional black metal band, but all this changed when they released the "Blacker Than Black" single in 2018, which is also this album's closer. Its mix of trap and black metal just could not be passed up easily. The band decided to build on that sound with By Chance and even become more adventurous and experimental. Black metal has a history of successfully blending with sounds that on paper should not blend, like trip hop (Netra) or gospel (Zeal & Ardor) but this sort of thing doesn't happen every day. It's rare that I get to come across something as avant-garde as this, let alone dig it as much.

This is music to be played in a mental asylum; any track could be used as the theme song for American Horror Story and I mean this as high praise. Obscure melodies, dark sound effects and various interesting instruments (accordion, piano, brass instruments, etc.) are used to provide a blackened trap stage on which Farmakon barks the - admittedly silly - lyrics like a rabid pit bull. It feels slightly repetitive towards the end of its second half, but this is really the only flaw I can mention.

The twisted introduction and the vitriolic aggression of "WIMG", the folksy perversion of "Check It", the demented piano playing of my absolute favourite "I See It This Way", and the ritualistic character of "Madonna" got imprinted on my brain after just one listen. With subsequent listens, I found myself growing fond of this album more and more. I don't even know how and why I initially gave it a chance; whether it was the epilepsy-inducing second part of the "I'm Not Yours" video, which reminded me of the late Keith Flint on "Firestarter" or the fact that my ears had already been trained by the gangsta black metal vibe of Peste Noire's "Le Dernier Putsch", but By Chance has now become an album that I enormously enjoy and play a lot, even though my normal listening habits suggest that it should make me barf.

As far as black metal goes, this is totally original and unique, and I have to applaud these two Belarusians for daring something that will likely get more hate than love from both trap and black metal fans. They don't care though; they are only musicians who make music (read the first paragraph again). And, just like their videos, Mora Prokaza's music is weird and disturbing, provocative and completely out-of-the-box. Would you By Chance care to go off the rails for once?

"I'm not done,
Where is my gun?"