The Arkona group is known both at home and abroad, thanks to the talent of a modest girl named Masha. Compositions combined pagan motifs of Ancient Russia with heavy metal. The style is characterized as a pagan-folk, which is a very outstanding trend. The project is interesting from all sides, because on the Russian difficult stage there are few such outstanding teams as the rock band Arkona.
Start
This story began 16 years ago in January 2002, when two adherents of the cult of pre-Christian Russia (Dolgoprudnian native religion of Vyatichi) Alexander “Warlock” Korolev and Masha “Skrim” Arkhipova decided to put together their gang.
The first swallow was the demo album of the same year, “Rus”, after which the guys started active performances with such cool groups as Therion, Pagan Reign, Rossomahaar, Butterfly Temple and Svarga. This was followed by a two-year pause due to the fact that the participants scattered in different directions, and further prospects were unknown.
Promotion
The year 2004 was very fruitful, as the albums of the Arkona group Renaissance and Lepta were released one after another. And all this thanks to the persistence of Masha, who wrote music and lyrics, and then asked her friends from Nargathrond to help her with the realization of her ideas, because there were no own musicians at the time of the recording of the first album.
The team instantly received the status of the best performers within the given genre, which is quite logical, since we don’t have many pagan-folk-metal styles.
Next album “To the glory of the great!” released in 2005, and was distinguished by the fact that the music was enriched with new ethnic instruments. Then a concert and recording of new material followed. In 2006, a CD was born called Life for Glory, which included a full DVD.
Weighting
Came May 2007, and the group "Arkona" again began studio work. The sound of the new album, entitled “From Heart to Sky,” turned out to be more interesting, since it combined such metal styles as: death, black and doom. However, the compositions, as before, were filled with Slavic themes, reflecting the worldview of the musicians themselves. Representatives of the Belarusian choir "Hotel" participated in the creation of the new material.
To date, the team includes such members:
- Masha "Scream" - vocals;
- Sergey "Lazar" - guitar;
- Ruslan “Kniaz” - bass;
- Vladimir "Volk" - folk instruments;
- Andrey Ishchenko - drums.
World-class
The year 2008 came and the Arkona group went to the Ragnarök Festival V, which is one of the largest festivals for pagan-metal representatives. Moreover, the guys were headlining there and won the ardent love of thousands of audiences. Returning to their homeland, the Arkonians received an unexpected offer from the cool European label Napalm Records, which took on the musicians tightly, organizing the implementation of the next album and a tour of Europe.
Disk "Goy, Rode, goy!" was released in 2009, along with a DVD entitled Velesov’s Night. Forty people participated in the recording of the new album, so the work turned out to be longer and more difficult, but the result was decent. The main treasure was the song of the band “Arkona” with the patriotic title “On my land”, which is notable for the fact that musicians from such cult groups as Heidevolk, Menhir, Obtest, Skyforger and Månegarm took part in its implementation.
Touring time
The year 2010 came, which was filled with interesting trips to such cool European festivals as: Ragnarök, Paganfest and Metalfest. The Arkona group pretty well traveled from Scandinavia to the Balkans, attracting more and more new fans. In total, 2010 brought the guys a little more than 150 concerts, which was an absolute breakthrough and career of musicians.
Hardworking Masha during a long tour found time to prepare material for the recording of a new album. Work in the studio came in November of that year, and ended in the summer of 2011. The sixth album, entitled “The Word”, was as large as its predecessors, and in addition to the choir, a symphony orchestra was also involved in the recording.
In 2011, the Arkona group went on their first world tour, and a year later, being in Moscow, celebrated their first anniversary - 10 years together with a string quartet and choir. Then the guys again plunged into traveling around the world, taking part in the largest world festivals.
Changes in the composition
The year 2013 came, and the guys who returned from the tour went on to work on a new brainchild called Yav. However, Vlad “Artist” soon decided to leave, but finished recording some of the songs for this disc. In his place came Andrei Ivashchenko.
The new album turned out to be even more powerful and complex from the technical side, however, the usual choir and string-plucked instruments were not noticed during the sound.
This was followed by a major Russian tour, and then the Arkona group again went to perform at European festivals. In 2017, the musicians celebrated their fifteenth birthday, giving fans new concerts.
Nowadays
At the beginning of 2018, the pagans released an album called “Temple”, which is particularly heavy with a touch of hopeless darkness. Then the guys again plunged into large-scale trips around the world.
Speaking about the Arkona group, one thing can be said - this is the pride of the Russian difficult scene, and there are extremely positive reviews about them in the European media.