UN: When the band was formed in 1997 was the music along the same lines as your new album “Human Error“? From the look of the demo covers and the fact that you recorded an Emperor cover I’m lead to believe that it was more along the lines of more straight forward black metal.

Waran: No, it was far different from our present music. In the early beginning we were playing very melodic, and rather slow shit, we didn’t know what we wanted our music to be like. As the time went by, we started to become a “band” and “musicians”, not only four friends keeping on playing whatever. Then we tried to make faster and less melodic songs, so in fact it was something like straight, forward black metal. As our abilities become better, our music changed a little into combination of black and death metal. Evolution in our music depends on our skills mainly, so debut album is higher technical than our previous materials from demos. Recording Emperor cover was important in fact, it was a kind of manifesto, where in the metal music we were those times, so we put “I am the Black Wizards” on “Demo ‘98”.

UN: Just a quick one here, I was curious to ask why you guys chose the name Crionics.

Waran: When we found a band, we were looking for a name, so we’ve chosen “Crionics” from few suggestions, because we liked it the best. Now, I see it was good decision, it suits perfectly to us. We weren’t inspired with Slayer’s song at all although it comes from it.

UN: How did Candlelight come into the picture for the band? For any metal band it must be pretty damned cool when one of the best out there gets in touch about releasing albums for your band. Are you guys pleased with how Candlelight has been working out so far?

Waran: After recording “Human Error” Empire Records was looking for foreign label for a long time, and when we thought we’ll have distribution abroad only, we got a proposition from Candlelight. It was all our management’s contribution, and we are glad to be on Candlelight where also are our favourite bands like Emperor, Myrkskog, Zyklon etc. It’s too early to say anything about their work as we’re before European premiere, but deal’s conditions seem to be perfect to us.

UN: I just have to say that “Human Error” is one hell of an amazing album. How are you guys expecting the response to be when the album is released later this month by Candlelight? I could see a lot of people being into this record, it should appeal equally to both black metal fans and death metal fans.

Waran: Thanks. We don’t think about it. The most important is just response itself, positive, negative - nevermind. The point is to arouse any reaction. We hope some people will be interested in our music, it is stuff for both black and death metal fans.

UN: “Human Error” while definitely black metal influenced seems to fuse it with a strong core of death metal. I would almost say that this is probably the best I’ve ever heard a band combine the two together. Is it conscious when you want to have a death metal part or a more black metal sounding part, or do the songs just naturally work out this way?

Waran: Thanks again. We do not plan, like - now we’ll use death metal riff, and after it we’ll put black metal one. In the beginning, we wrote songs basing on patterns, while now we endeavour to make songs in which every riff is a result of previous part of the song. Compositions have to have a feeling, it is not important which genre of metal rules in each bar. It’s not mathematics - it’s music.

UN: How long did the recording process for the album take? It has an incredibly tight and powerful sounding production, but due to the amount of layering it must have taken awhile to get everything down on tape. Were you guys limited by budget or did you get to take as much as you needed?

Waran: We were recorded and mixed the album in about ten days. The sound is really good because of Hertz Studio production, one of the best Polish studios if you mean recording metal. Yes, we were limited by budget and have to hurry, so we’re not satisfied with keyboards and vocals. We tried to prepare the best we could to this session, so we’re able to finish production during planned time. Besides, owners of the studio are really professional sound creators, and working with them was a pleasure, and went rather ably.

UN: I was curious to ask who did the painting for the cover. It’s a very cool looking album cover that really suits the style of the band. Can you explain how it ties in with the album name and explain the album title while we are on the subject?

Waran: Our cover’s author is Jacek Wisniewski, artist who makes graphics for many bands on Empire, and for Vader finally. You can see some of his works at http://www.artworks.isg.pl. Our layout was his idea, we accepted it, and only colour of it is proposed by us. There is no connection between cover and album name, as you said it just suits our style. Title “Human Error (Ways to Self-destruction)” sounds good first of all, and interpretation you can find in lyrics.

UN: You guys recorded a Carpathian Forest track that will be included on the Candlelight version of the album. Would you say that they were a big influence on the bands sound? What was the cover original recorded for initially?

Waran: We made the cover because we like CF, their primitive, straight songs, they are really ugly and sick, we play “Carpathian Forest” at the end of every gig, it’s ideal song when you want to fuck up the stage, it’s a kind of grande finale. We hail their music although we have nothing in common with it in fact.

UN: I read on the website that the band was already working on newer material and that is was somewhat different then Human Error. What can we expect from the newer material? I’m assuming we’ll still be able to tell that it’s Crionics, but what will the main differences be?

Waran: Actually, we’ve almost finished working on new album. Songs we have till now, are more in black metal vein, material is still a little melodic, but in a different way, arrangements are more interesting and definitely, it is faster. Elements characteristic for us, like artificial harmonics, harmonies in terce, are still used, but in sum second album will be better than debut.

UN: I have to say that I am really impressed with the bands lyrical approach. It deals with subjects typical of the black metal genre, but does them from a more personal approach it seems. Is it important to have lyrics that say something over just the basic satan themes. By the way, the line “Ashes to Ashes, blast to blast” is possibly one of the best lines ever!

Waran: Most of lyrics from “Human Error” are mine. I endeavour to write it in my way, in black metal genre but from my point of view, using some parallels I find interesting and talking about common things that annoy me. So was intention due to lyrics, and I’m glad some can see it. “Ashes...” is my favourite too, ha, ha.

UN: Do you think that being from Poland will help the band gain recognition within the scene? There seems to be quite the scene coming from the country. Vader and Behemoth are both quite well known, so that fact alone must draw a lot of attention to other bands from Poland.

Waran: Being from Poland sucks, it’s hard to be metal band here, and to become known outside our country. Bands you’ve mentioned had a little luck but first of all worked a lot for their success.

UN: With the new album out and a new label behind you guys, do you think that you’ll be able to embark on more tours? I know you guys had the chance to tour with Behemoth and Darkane. How much ground did the tour cover? Would you say that it was a successful tour?

Waran: I don’t think so... Touring is for biggest bands from labels. Of course we would like to go playing live anywhere, we enjoy gigs a lot, but probably we will have to wait for such opportunity. We had nine-date tour in Poland in biggest countries, at the end of 2002, and now we’re going with Vader, Hate and Lost Soul on September/October for almost 20 gigs. “Here And Beyond” Polish tour was Crionics’ first tour in fact, but as I played some tours with other band (Sceptic) we were prepared what it will be like. It was great experience, and partying with Behemoth was hard... People’s reaction were quite good, as they didn’t knew the album good, as we played a few days after release date. Now acceptance is much better when playing live.

UN: Would you say that Emperor has had a big influence on the band? I think that they were one of the first black metal bands that could really play their instruments and weren’t afraid to add technicality to their music. It’s fairly obvious after just one listen that Crionics knows how to play and isn’t afraid to show it. I read that you had another Emperor cover in the works for the next album. What song are you guys choosing?

Waran: Definitely yes it had. My opinion is the same, we were (and still are) fascinated with what they’ve done on their albums, compositions, and all patterns are amazing, they are one of our bands we’ll adore until death. Combination of extremity, melody and classical influences is what impressed us a lot. This time we’ve prepared cover of “The Loss and Curse of Reverence” with these characteristic artificial harmonics in main riff. By the way, I wrote beginning of “Episode of the Falling Star” when I was 14, and never heard Emperor before...

UN: Does playing in other bands limit the time you guys have for Crionics, or is this band the main priority? You guys seem to be into a wide range of metal, every band you guys play in is very different.

Waran: Actually, as I left Sceptic about one year ago and recently Anal Stench, only our drummer and bassist play in other band - Thy Disease. By the way, our first guitarist - Yanuary, who also plays live as session musician of Crionics, founded that band. I think for each of us Crionics is priority now, as we work on it a lot last times, and play gigs quite regularly.

UN: Is there an ideal place you’d like to see Crionics end up? It’s still early in the bands career, but with an album like Human Error I can only see good things happening for the band. Would you guys like to become a household name with the black metal genre one day?

Waran: We hope one day we’ll be able to leave all except playing in the band, to concentrate on writing songs, playing gigs and practising. We really hope. There is no sense to end up in any moment there’s always something more you can do with your band, and with yourself, in general. To stop in a moment is like to die. I think most of bands would like to have such comfortable situation, to focus only on music and don’t care about equipment, money etc., and try to reach the aim. So we do. Thanks for the interview, and opinions. Let your heads bang for Satan!