Poccolus is a name that was new to me. After some research, it became clear that this Lithuanian black metal band released their first demo back in 1994 and has now re-released their 1994 promo Ragana.

It’s kind of odd when a band seems to have as many re-issues as they have released new material. Anyway, in this day and age you get spoiled with clear cut productions so it’s good to come across some old work with a more raw production.

 

The structure of the songs are more or less the same, but the challenging riffs make it worthwhile to listen to Ragana nevertheless. Besides the riffs, there are some acoustic parts and there’s a keyboard included in the songs as well, which adds some folk to the music. The vocals are mostly screams, although you will hear some clean vocals too. The drums seem to be programmed, but not in a disturbing way. Fortunately, the drums are diverse in the way that there are also some passages that can best be described as tribal, which definitely makes the album more interesting.

 

Overall, Poccolus re-released a nice album, although I must admit to me it’s nothing special. It’s always cool to hear some live songs, so you know what the band is capable of, but other than that, to me it’s just another band.