Carrion Sky formed in Warsaw in late 2022 as a three-piece, without a fixed concept or long-term plan. The band brings together musicians previously active in Black Tundra, Major Kong, and Chainsword, but the starting point was deliberately open. As they put it themselves, there was “no plan or fixed idea — just a wish to create music that drifts between anger, sadness and beauty without a fixed shape or form.”
The group emerged over time was a sound described plainly by the band as “heavy, slow and open,” shaped through repetition, noise, and layers of synthesizers that kept pulling the material further inward. Rather than refining songs toward clarity or structure, Carrion Sky allowed ideas to stretch, blur, and occasionally erode.
That approach led to their debut album “As our hearts devour us,” recorded in 2025. The record reflects, in their words, “what we struggle to overcome,” and avoids narrative framing beyond that. It is less a statement than a document of pressure being sustained over long durations.
The album was recorded at Silent Scream Studio in Warsaw by Mateusz Nowosad, with drums tracked separately at Sound of Record Studio by Haldor Grunberg. Mixing and mastering were handled by Roland Wiegner at Die Tonmeisterei Studio in Oldenburg, Germany. The process itself mirrors the music: split, layered, and assembled across spaces rather than captured in one controlled environment.
Visually, the album is paired with cover art by Roger Haus, depicting a girl and a wolf from the “Hai” series. The band is direct about how the image was chosen. They describe it not as a conceptual decision but the result of searching through an artist’s work online. “We saw this image as one of the first,” they explain, “and immediately knew it had to be this one.” Despite continued searching, nothing else aligned as closely with the album’s atmosphere.
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They point to the image as a collision of contradictions: moments of happiness that can turn frightening at any time, or brutality carrying something quietly beautiful underneath. The band openly acknowledges that the artwork was created using AI tools, a choice they did not expect to make and do not generally support. Still, they insist the method became secondary to the impact. The image, they say, was simply strong enough that its origin stopped mattering.
Musically, “As our hearts devour us” unfolds slowly across five extended pieces.
The opening track, “the distance within,” began with a single main riff. For months, the band built what they describe as “mantric backgrounds” around it. The intention was repetition that accumulates rather than resolves, pushing the track forward until it eventually breaks apart. That arc — slow construction followed by erosion — sets the tone for the album as a whole.
“I seek protection” started life very differently. Initially conceived as a calm ambient piece based on gentle background melodies, it gradually invited something more disturbing. The band admits the shift was almost inevitable. “It ended with screaming, as usual,” they note dryly, acknowledging the contrast with ambient conventions without trying to justify it.
“watch me drown” is described from multiple internal perspectives. Paweł Zmarlak frames it as an emotional purge, saying the track “sounds like throwing out everything that drags you down, or a scream to someday find peace.” Dave Killoran focuses on form rather than feeling, calling it their first serious attempt at deconstructing composition. It begins sparse and heavy, builds into a full impact, and then dismantles itself piece by piece.
“Dredge the wound” sits in a suspended state. The band describes it as a moment where time stops, then slowly accelerates without ever reaching full speed. They compare it to a dream scenario: trying to defend yourself, throwing punches that carry no force, continuing to fight even when nothing connects. The tension comes not from escalation, but from the absence of release.
The album closes with “lost among ourselves,” a track the band calls slightly “cosmic” in sound. Like the rest of the record, it expresses a desire for peace and safety, but places that longing against melancholic or aggressive surroundings.
Carrion Sky’s sound sits between post-metal, drone, ambient, and synth-based repetition, with occasional nods toward krautrock pacing. The band themselves reference this blend casually, mentioning influences that range from heavy noise to ambient music, without positioning themselves within a scene or lineage.
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Their view of the Polish metal and hardcore scene is similarly unromantic. They describe it as both “great and a bit fucked.” On one hand, there are many releases, active audiences, and large festivals operating at a high level. On the other, it remains a niche. Marcin Skarzyński notes that after attending shows outside the metal world, the scale becomes clearer. In Warsaw, he says, metal concerts increasingly draw the same familiar faces.
When asked about “best records of the year,” the band dismisses the idea almost immediately.
Rankings and competitions feel distant to them. Skarzyński instead points to records he personally cannot stop listening to, mentioning “Soft Spot” by Honningbarna and recent releases by Chat Pile.
Zmarlak highlights newer stuff by Blood Incantation as well as “Quarter Turns Over Living Line” by Raime.
Killoran shrugs off the question entirely, noting his immersion in death metal and ambient niches “there’s nothing to brag about.”
The origins of Carrion Sky are tied closely to disruption rather than ambition. After 2020, plans collapsed. Black Tundra had released a second album and booked European shows that never happened due to the pandemic. Momentum stalled. Major Kong ceased activity around the same time. From those pauses came a different motivation: to play without filtering ideas.
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Skarzyński and Killoran came from Black Tundra, Zmarlak from Major Kong. They wanted to work with synthesizers and, more importantly, to be in a band where every proposal met the same answer: yes. Metal? Yes. Kraut-inspired repetition? Yes. A fourteen-minute ambient piece built on hums and friction? Yes.
While “As our hearts devour us” remains largely guitar-driven, the band is already working on new offerings with a stronger electronic focus. They are clear about one thing: what comes next is undefined, but the rule of incorporating every idea stays in place.
Carrion Sky’s line-up consists of Marcin Skarzyński on bass, synths, and vocals, Paweł Zmarlak on drums and synths, and Dave Killoran on guitars. “As our hearts devour us” stands as their first recorded outcome — not defined as a debut statement or arrival, but as a record of persistence, pressure, and unresolved movement forward.
