UN: Armageddon’s Evolution is a much more black metal oriented album then Human Error in my opinion. What brought about the more blackened approach? The influence was definitely there with the last album but you’ve definitely explored it more with the new album.

Waran: I agree, Our second album is more black metal than anything, considering the sound that is a lot less selective than on our debut. Especially the guitars, which at first were suppose to be very illegible and not as "clean" sounding. I wanted them to sound a lot more spontaneous and less precise and reservedly. The songs are more tied together and less chaotic. It’s not just a riff collection, which had place on Human Error. Our synthesizers finally got to sound the way we always wanted them to, since we had a much better equipment available and we worked under the eye of a producer who is a keyboardist himself. To tell you the truth, we wanted to have this sound on our first record, but somehow it didn’t happen.

UN: Do you think that is a more natural approach for the band? Is this the style that you guys had in mind all along?

Waran: Yea, we wanted to record this type of an album a long time ago, and got pretty close to our "ideal' sound with our second demo "Beyond the Blazing Horizon", but this spirit was lost on our first record because of our lack of experience and lack of time we had to record that album. "Armageddon's Evolution" is a natural result of what we had been doing before, and a sequence of our growth as musicians and people.

UN: Recently Marcotic left the band and has left the band with a vacant bassist position. Have you found anyone to replace him as of yet or will you mainly be using session musicians for tours?

Waran: Immediately after we parted ways, which had place during the recording session, we were to play a tour, so we had to find a replacement pretty quickly. Destroyer from Krakow based bands MOLOCH and KRIEGSMASCHINE became his replacement, but as for now he is only a session bass player. We'll see later on how this goes. He takes care of his duties perfectly, but we don’t want to have a permanent musician in our band that doesn’t have any influence on the music we make. It's just pointless. Our second session musician is Yanuary who was a co founder of Crionics but got kicked out after like 2 years, ha, ha. Our collaboration ends with him playing gigs and that’s probably the best way for all of us. With 3 permanent and 2 session members everything works fine and will probably stay this way for good.

UN: You guys are taking part in a couple of fairly large scale tours, one with Vader and another with Decapitated. Are you guys excited about the opportunity to get your music out to more people? How far will the touring take you guys? I’m assuming the tours are definitely not just in Poland.

Waran: So far we played two tours across Poland. First one was with Behemoth after we released "Human Error" and the second one with Vader after the "Armageddon's ..." release. Lately we got to support Decapitated on our first European tour. We love to play gigs and really love touring. We don't get to do that too often but there is a possibility that this situation will soon change. Gigs are essential when it comes to metal music and all those project bands that don't play live are not all the way metal in my opinion, ha, ha. The real dose of energy is live on the stage, and that’s where the only opportunity lies, if you want to see how much the band really is committed to what they do.

UN: Did the new album come out with Thrash ‘Em All magazine like Human Error did? I’m a bit confused by that, does this mean that a full version of the album comes packaged with the magazine? It seems like a good way to spread the name of the band. Do you guys make any money off of the magazine sales?

Waran: That’s true. Our polish distributor is Empire records, who also have the mentioned "Thrash'em All" magazine, and with us signing the deal with them, that’s how our 3 records will come out in Poland. From ones perspective it is a little strange that it comes out as a bonus to a magazine, but there is also a pretty good side to all of this. Other bands of our type, (I’m not talking about Vader or Behemoth) sell around 300, maybe 500 records max. With the kind of distribution we had, our first record sold around ten times more copies. Poland is a pretty poor country, and not too many can afford buying a record in a music store. They rather download it on the internet, especially if the band they want isn't known all that well yet. Thrash'em All comes out once every 2 to 3 months. It includes two records of either polish or licensed foreign bands and it costs less than a single polish metal CD and about twice less than a foreign metal CD. It is pretty profitable to the fan as it is to the band, don’t you think? When it comes to money, we don't get any percentage of the copies sold in Poland. We are still in school and have to work so as for now this is just our very serious hobby.

UN: Emperor is a definite influence of the band, especially with the newer stuff. Was it a challenge to learn the Loss and Curse of Reverence? Why did you guys pick this track in particular? I think in my opinion it is definitely one of, if not, the best song Emperor has ever written.

Waran: I don't agree with this. This time any particular band didn’t inspire us. Maybe when we first started CRIONICS we wanted to play like this band or that band, but since our first record we wanted to sound like CRIONICS and we do our best to take inspiration from other sources than just music. When it comes to EMPEROR, I am really tired of explaining to everyone where the resemblance is coming from. Musicians probably know an answer to this one. We wanted to cover "The Loss..." a long time ago, but it wasn’t possible till now. That one album was recorded in a strange way, and it’s almost impossible to catch all the little accents and noises. Some time ago I ran into EMPEROR tabs that were done in a sensational way and even had some keyboard parts, so we had something to start with. The rest, we had to take straight from the record, which wasn’t easy. The song itself with its technique and execution isn't all that hard to learn. Just like you, we value this one. For me personally, it was probably the first EMPEROR song that I ever heard, and I think that it was on some compilation CD. What got my attention were the high pitch harmonics that I loved so much at that time and I do till now. This song is definitely one that represents this band and is somewhat a classic hit that we also play live.

UN: I found it interesting that you guys recorded the album in two different studios. While most bands record drums first, you guys recorded the drums during the second part of the sessions. Did you guys play to click tracks for the initial guitar tracks, or did you record with the drummer and he redid his tracks at Hertz?

Waran: Right. We planned this kind of an unusual recording session. First of all we wanted to use the equipment they have at Hertz studio in Bialystok, but we also wanted to lay the tracks in our hometown in Krakow because it was cheaper and they had better equipment when it comes to keyboards. Because of the price, we couldn’t record the drums, then the rest of the instruments and then again travel to the other end of Poland. What I did, was first I programmed the metronome and put most drum tracks in it, so when I recorded some "clean" guitar tracks and other parts it was a big help. Next, we traveled to Bialystok where Darkside recorded his parts and I added solos, distorted the guitars, and mixed the whole thing. It happened to be a good system and it saved us a lot of money.

UN: I think you guys managed to capture a lot of intensity with the album while incorporating many more layers then Human Error had. Would you say that it was a conscious decision to add a bit more of a symphonic element to this album? In general there just seems to be more going on within these songs.

Waran: As I said before, we evolved as musicians so our compositions are better, more intensive and are way ahead of what we did before. I think the vocals on this one contributed a lot more to the better sound. I recorded a lot more tracks and layers so they are more aggressive and evil sounding and their production is a lot better. About the symphonic elements... This time Vac-V the keyboardist put more heart into the material and bought better equipment. We also used the equipment at Lynx Studio whose owner also plays this instrument, so we finally got the keys to sound the way we wanted. That’s where the whole "symphonic" effect's from.

UN: The new album has been out for quite sometime in Poland, how has the response from your native country been so far? Have you guys been playing a lot of gigs in Poland to promote the new disc?

Waran: Right before the premiere of our second album we played "Blitzkrieg II" tour, so at that time not too may people were familiar with the new material. In our country people don't really respect and appreciate us. It all has to do with the ignorance and bullshit that’s been around here for a long time. Practically anyone who achieved something is treated with ignorance and is pissed on. I'm talking especially about all the internet "know it all" forum "bosses" who haven’t achieved jack and talk shit left and right. It’s just sad...

UN: Are you guys excited to see how the rest of the scene in going to react to the new album? Human Error definitely brought you to the attention of many more metal fans in different countries, and I can only see this new album reaching even more people.

Waran: From what I noticed our debut was well received outside of Poland, we got some pretty damn good reviews. With "Armageddon's Evolution" it's even better. We are extremely happy because we put a lot of hart and work into this and it’s nice to hear that someone appreciates all of this. Let's hope that with the help of Candlelight and Plastic Head distribution we can reach new fans with our music. If anyone after reading this interview wants to find out what CRIONICS is all about, I invite you to our web site www.crionics.pl Praise the Beast!