Watch Poland Metallers Materia’s Twisted New Video ‘Rosa Alba’

From the northwestern town of Szczecinek, Poland ”“ which is mostly known for European medieval history ”“ Materia bring a very contrasting style of metal than what the country is known for. Formed in 2007, the band has released one EP and two albums, performed at festivals ranging from British gathering Sonisphere’s Poland edition to Wacken Open Air and Euroblast In Germany.

Materia also host their very own music festival, called Materiafest, which takes place this August in Szczecinek. Vocalist-bassist Michael Piesiak says, “The climate and people are very nice, our hometown is located between two lakes and the festival is just by one of them.” Materiafest has hosted metal heavyweights such as Behemoth, Riverside, Textures and more, and in the process of it, established their own band as forerunners of Poland’s modern metal circuit.

Piesiak adds, “There are many great metal bands here and mostly it’s death/black metal. Anyway, a huge part of Polish audience is still looking for different stuff, so I cannot say if it’s harder to survive as a  modern metal band or not. I think whatever you want to do, be good at it.”

Materia sound like they’re good at delivering emotive, dissonant prog-leaning metal that sounds like it would fit right in with the likes of Monuments or Textures. Their latest song “Rosa Alba” is off their upcoming third album The Rising, which will release later this year. The piercing song is set to an animated video made by Polish photographer and filmmaker Beniamin Szwed. “[The] video is a shorter version of an animation which was made by Beniamin Szwed in 2011. It took six months and 15,000 photos to create the whole video.” Materia even retained a spoken word section from the original, which narrates a “strong message” about empathy and indifference causing an unnatural growth called “white rose.”

With a new single and an album due this year ”“ and not to forget, the planning of Materiafest ”“ it looks like a busy year for the band. Ask them about how difficult it is to break out of the European circuit and Piesiak provides a nuanced answer. “I think it depends on [a] band’s booking agency. For this moment we are co-operating with an European one but for sure in the future we would love to expand and visit Asia and other parts of the world,” the frontman says.