Certainly one of the most popular Russian folk metal bands of this time, Arkona made their way to the historic Regent Theater in Los Angeles with Korpiklaani this past weekend. Arkona has captivated audiences in the states and the rest of the world since their first tour years ago- riveting and uniting a whole scene of metalheads in hundreds of cities. Where one may have assumed a difficulty with the language barrier (as the music is all sung in Russian), Arkona proved that music is a universal language. The band’s debut album “Vozrozhdenie” (Revival) quickly became one of the most successful Slavic pagan metal albums of all time. The band has since gone on to record several more albums, with the most recent being “Khram” which was released on January 19th, 2018.
These Moscow natives adorned the stage with a very unique microphone stand- a bull skull with eyes that glowed brightly amongst the dark background. Intermingling a clever mixture of traditional Russian folk instruments and iconic melodies (having grown up in a Russian family, there were plenty of musical snippets I recognized immediately), Arkona has a sound unlike any other. Front woman Maria “Masha Scream” Arkhipova, is one of few successful female vocalists to sing in a death growl style. Her vocals shone and mesmerized the room the entire performance! Each of her band members played with an equal amount of power and veracity, never ceasing to show off their incredibly technical skill and passion for the craft.
Though the majority of the audience was unable to sing along with Arkona due to not being fluent in the band’s native language, every single audience member got up and moved to the powerful melodies and vocals. The crowd chanted “Arkona” every opportunity, eager for more and more music. As an avid concert goer, I can say with absolute certainty that the moshpit that Arkona gathered was one of the largest I’d seen taking place in that venue!
ARKONA LIVE AT THE REGENT THEATER LOS ANGELES
