Rating: 8/10
Release: 21 March 2017
Label: Werewolf Promotion

Stworz has released quite a few things since we wrote our review back in 2012 on ‘Śnij ziemio moja…’, but none of the new albums reached us, so I have to admit, I din’t get to listen to all the releases. The contributions of Stworz to this split album ‘Warñija’ surprised me a bit. So, I gave them a quick listen. It turns out the newer stuff, is not as loud and harsh as the album we reviewed. I’m not sure if this is a change of style or Stworz is just wandering besides the paved paths and exploring this side of themselves.
Stworz made this split together with Alne. We reviewed them way back in 2012 as well, but there were no new releases there after that. The bands honor the beautiful land of Warñija on this split. And this means the albums isn’t just a split, but a project the bands both contributed on. And you can hear that, the album is a whole, not two EP’s glued together. That was really a surprise, in my opinion Stworz and Alne were quite different bands, but that doesn’t show on this album. Their styles are quite the same, and when you first listen to this album, you don’t notice if it’s Alne or Stworz you hear. When you give it a closer look, you can hear the difference, but I would say the most significant difference are the female vocals. Where Alne, helped out by Anna Malarz (Ex Thy Worshiper), has this dreamy mystical female vocals. The vocals with Stworz are in the form of a narrated female voice, which is an excellent choice. Both vocals go very well with the subdued dreamy and mystical neofolk of both bands.
The compositions of both bands are very nice and the production is done very nicely, so you can fully enjoy every detail of the music. To me the music has only one downside, it isn’t very ‘loud’, if it wasn’t for the earlier releases of both bands, they wouldn’t be mentioned at Folk-metal.nl. Despite the fact this sounds nice, I wouldn’t mind if the next albums of both bands were a bit heavier…

Tracklist

1. Alne: Warmiñska Noc
2. Alne: Têsknota
3. Alne: Ognik i Dziewczyna
4. Alne: Rzeko, spojrzyj we mnie
5. Stworz: Ziamno Œwiento
6. Stworz: Warñijskie Lato
7. Stworz: O Warmijo
8. Stworz: £yna
9. Stworz: S³oñce
10. Stworz: Jutrzenka
11. Stworz: Pieϖ Warmianki
12. Stworz: Wieczór mglisty, wieczór blady