Having the name of the Slavic god of the sun and ligh, Khors is on the road since 2004. The band is a little older, but that’s when we could know about this pagan entity. A Black Metal band known for their technique, incredible albums and iconic covers, Khors chatted with us in a conversation that spanned his entire career, trying to find the main points in this long journey of the Ukrainian masters. The interview has been updated in some passages due to the Covid 19 Pandemic, and I thank Konstantin Zmievsky for it, but it is ready to be read. Khors released last year the full album “Where the Word Acquires Eternity” and once again proved why he is one of the great icons of Black Metal worldwide.
I also thank Iain Purdie for all the help with the edition of this interview, and also Khors again, for supporting the true underground.
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You are pretty busy with Khors and I believe that Necrom takes a lot of your time, too. On the first edition of Unholy Pagan Wolves we have Necrom. And for the upcoming second edition, Khors, how has the journey on Khors been since the beginning?
– Hi! It’s been pretty nice. Balanced between ups and downs on our scale. A lot of time wasted, many opportunities missed, but much has been achieved on the other hand. So the story of Khors doesn’t look like climbing a hill, but rather like rafting.
“За межами тваринного (Beyond the Bestial)” was the last release. It is a killer EP. What are the plans for 2020? Are you guys busy with Khors this year?
– Good to know you liked it. At the moment we’re finishing all trackings for our new album. The finishing touches
left. After that we’ll proceed with mixing and mastering, so we hope we’ll finish with everything already this Spring. You should hear from us with our new album this year. But the fact that we’re unsigned band at the moment, doesn’t give us the right to speak with confidence about this.
Khors impresses me a lot by the technical quality. It’s a trio, but it looks like we have 5 or 6 people playing. Do you believe that the band that you got together helped on that? You have members that are well-known musician from a lot of bands from Ukraine. By the way, you are one of the greatest musicians I’ve ever talked to.
– Thank you for your appreciation again. We are quartet actually. But we usually engage keyboard player for recordings, so on every our record – yes, at least 5 musicians play.
We have absolutely different experience before Khors. Despite we played together with bass player Khorus in the same band some period of time, I had my death metal band for a long time then, while Khorus was addicted to another kind of metal. Nowadays we are 4 guys with pretty much different musical tastes and we’re different in many other aspects of life as well. The combination of all our differences breeds that what you can hear from us.
The album “Following the Years of Blood” was released with a DVD too. It is not very commom from Pagan Black Metal this kind of release. Usually there is a mistery of identities and keep things Underground. Was this release important to you?
– At that time DVD format was not that archaic as it is now. Don’t look for any special meanings in it. It’s just a compilation of our lives footages in quite a good quality. Sort of a “for fans only” release.
You have other projects or bands you work with. Could you just let us know what are they planning? Or if any of the bands are on hold or split up?
– I personally worked with many bands, but for the moment I work with newborn super band Necrom. You already 
can check our EP «The Light Has Never Been Here» and we are working on our full-length now. Besides Necrom I also do live drums for Natural Spirit, well known Pagan Metal band and for one more folkish rock band. Not really busy these days. Used to be much denser 🙂 Khorus, a bass man, runs Pestilent black metal band KZOHH as well as engaged in black metal band Ulvegr and runs his label Ashen Dominion in addition. Jurgis’ passion is his Oriental ambient metal band Sanatana. You can check his debut album, which impresses by it’s variety. Our new guitarist Andres is busy with mixing and mastering processes in the studio.
Sometimes there are more projects, sometimes less, but at the moment the alignment of forces is like that.
Ukraine is a cradle for a lot of bands like the might Dub Buk and Nokturnal Mortum. Are there other bands that are new in Ukraine, but has kept your atention?
– Of course. There are many. I recommend you to pay your attention on Whire Ward. A brilliant post black metal band. Mutanter and their debul full length “The Limits”. This is probably the best death metal I have ever heard from Ukrainian bands. Barkasth – very nice black metal band with modern sound. Not typical for Kharkiv bm scene, but very nice. There are still many bands that I can admit, but there would be so long story 🙂 The only thing I should admit is the Ukrainian metal scene nowadays is stronger than ever.
The lyrics have a lot of elements of pagan culture of course, but there are a lot of philosophical questions mixed to warriors beliefs, for example. How the process of composing a new album works for you?
– Everytime is different. There are no constant formula of building a song. Sometimes it can be built completely on one rehearsal, sometimes we need many rehersals to make it ready. Sometimes we drop it unfinished and then build the final shape when recording. It is different. Therefore more interesting probably.
I know it is a little old one but “Mysticism” is one of my favorite albums. It has a lot of elements that I think Khors upgraded in the future like the clears voices and the atmospheric passages. Do you have a Khors album that you would definitely recommend for someone who never listened to the band?
– Well. Despite “Return to Abandoned” is my favourite one, I would recommend to start with “Night Falls…” just because it is closer to what we’re today. But I totally agree with you that “Mysticism” became our crucial album that divided our career on before and after. This one also defined our sound, at least it seems so to me 🙂
Since 2004 Khors doesnt have any split released. It is not athing that you think about and thet would be a nice way to spread Khors around?
– We never had any offers to became a band for a split and we never looked for this kind of an opportunity. Maybe in future it will be possible. Who knows. We’ll see.
We recently had Asgardsrei in Kiev, did any of the band mambers attended to it or performed? Is there any Metal Fest in Europe that you usually perform and support?
– None of us were attended or performed there. From the festivals we like because of it’s special atmosphere and 
hospitality are Kilkim Žaibu (Lithuania), Dark Troll (Germany), Oskorei (Ukraine) and Ragnard Rock (France) that doesn’t exist anymore unfortunately. Also Motocultor (France) was great experience for us. But never forget that we are not frequent guests at festivals. Especially in Europe.
The Khors covers are amazing, how are they chosen? I mean, you look for designers, you gat images together, because they are beautiful covers. Do you have a favorite one?
– From 2013 we collaborate with a talented and great designer Alex (Mayhem Project Design). We discuss the ideas and then Alex gives birth to graphics. My favourite one is “Night Falls…” CD and LP cover art.
Khors supports the digital plattforms. I know you have spotify and Deezer accounts, for example. What about the old cassetes and LPs that are having a coming back. Are you planning release cassetes aof past or new releases?
– We have some albums released on MC cassette and almost every album released on LP. If anybody will be interested in releasing our latest albums on MC – we’ll consider that.
Thank you for this interview and for the time invested in answering to it. Please, leave a message for the wolves in South America.
– Huge thanks to everybody supporting Metal Underground in South America. Hope to come and play for you one day.
