TSAR STANGRA

“The album became an act of world-building when all the separate elements finally started interacting and revealing a larger structure.”

“Distance changes your perspective. When you are far from your homeland, traditions, language, and history become more visible and more precious.”

“Tsar Stangra is interested in destruction only when it clears the way for remembrance.”

“The fire is not there to erase history, but to illuminate what survives.”

“Cultural authenticity is not about creating a museum piece. It is about respecting the source material enough to let it speak with its own voice.”

“Symbolism is not decoration; it is another language.”

“Folklore and history only remain alive when they continue to provoke questions, emotions, and reflection.”

“We are not trying to reconstruct the past exactly as it was. We are creating a dialogue between the past and the present.”

“The tension between Bulgaria and Canada is not a weakness. It is the reason Tsar Stangra exists.”

“Black metal and ritual are not opposites. Both are forms of intensity.”

“The broken worlds remain broken, but through music they can still speak to one another.”

Some albums are built around songs.
Others create entire landscapes that exist somewhere between history, memory, mythology, and imagination.
With ‘Hymns Of The Broken Worlds‘, Canadian/Bulgarian Melodic Black Metal band Tsar Stangra have created a world where Bulgarian heritage, black metal intensity, folklore, and cultural memory collide.
The album does not simply revisit the past, it transforms forgotten stories, symbols, and traditions into something alive and confrontational.
In this conversation with Fok ‘bs‘, Tsar Stangra discuss the process behind turning music into world-building, the creative tension between Bulgaria and Québec, the responsibility of working with cultural heritage, and how broken worlds can still leave behind powerful echoes.
‘Hymns Of The Broken Worlds’ feels like a record that doesn’t just tell stories, but rebuilds entire forgotten realities.
At what point did this album stop feeling like songwriting and start feeling like world-building?
“I think the album became an act of world-building during the mixing stage. Songwriting creates individual pieces, but world-building begins when you can finally see how those pieces relate to one another. For years, I was focused on writing riffs, arranging songs, researching history, folklore, poetry, and mythology. Each track existed almost as its own self-contained world. It was only when I sat down to mix the album that all the elements were finally on the table at the same time. As an engineer, I often compare it to research and development. The research phase was the long process of gathering stories, symbols, historical events, melodies, and cultural references. Mixing was the development phase, where those separate components started interacting and revealing a larger structure. Suddenly, recurring themes, contrasts, and connections became visible. Songs that had been written years apart began to speak to each other. Another way to describe it is cooking. For a long time I was collecting ingredients without fully knowing what the final meal would taste like. During mixing, the ingredients finally came together. That was the moment when ‘Hymns of the Broken Worlds’ stopped feeling like a collection of songs and started feeling like a place – a landscape inhabited by memories, myths, exiles, gods, forgotten voices, and the collisions between different cultures. The album’s world was not designed from the beginning; it emerged gradually from the relationships between all its fragments.”
Tsar Stangra exist between two cultural poles – Bulgarian heritage and Canadian environment.
How does that tension shape your sound rather than dilute it?
“I think the tension between those two worlds is actually the reason Tsar Stangra exists in the first place. If I were living in Bulgaria, I might not feel the same urgency to preserve and promote Bulgarian culture through music. Distance changes your perspective. When you are far from your homeland, traditions, language, history, and even small cultural details become more visible and more precious. At the same time, I am not trying to recreate Bulgarian folk music in a museum-like way. Tsar Stangra was born in Québec, and most of the musicians who have contributed to the project come from a Canadian metal background. They naturally write riffs and arrangements influenced by black metal, progressive rock, and Western musical traditions. I come from a different musical and cultural perspective, so there is often a creative push and pull between those approaches. You can actually hear that tension throughout ‘Химните на разрушените светове’. Some songs lean more toward traditional black metal structures, while others embrace Bulgarian folk harmonies, rhythms, and melodic ideas much more openly. Instead of forcing those differences to disappear, we allowed them to coexist. In many ways, the album became a dialogue between cultures rather than a fusion where everything blends into one homogeneous style. That idea extends beyond the music itself. We use Bulgarian folklore, history, and language, but we also work with musicians from Québec. We play pagan black metal while drawing on texts written by important Christian Bulgarian poets. Even the cover artwork reflects this collision of worlds, with Bulgarian pagan imagery confronting one of Québec’s most recognizable Christian landmarks. Rather than diluting the music, these contradictions give it its identity. The project lives in the space between cultures, and that space creates questions, tensions, and perspectives that neither side could produce alone. That’s what gives Tsar Stangra its voice.”
Black metal often deals with destruction, but your music seems equally focused on preservation of memory and myth.
Is Tsar Stangra more about burning worlds or saving their echoes?
“I would say Tsar Stangra is about both, but not in equal measure. We are interested in destruction only when it clears the way for remembrance. Black metal has always been fascinated by fire, collapse, and the end of worlds. Those themes are present in our music as well, but they are rarely the final destination. What interests me more is what survives after the flames. What memories endure? What myths remain alive? What parts of a culture continue to speak across centuries despite war, migration, religion, politics, or globalization? In that sense, Tsar Stangra is about burning everything that threatens the preservation of cultural memory while protecting what is sacred within it. Not sacred in a religious sense, necessarily, but sacred because it carries meaning, identity, and continuity. Languages, stories, folklore, historical memory, ancestral traditions – these are things that connect people to those who came before them. That idea is central to ‘Химните на разрушените светове’ The title itself suggests worlds that have been damaged, transformed, or lost. Yet the album is full of voices from the past that continue to echo through the present: Thracians, Khan Asparuh, Kukeri traditions, Bulgarian poetry, forgotten rituals, and the experience of exile. Even when a world disappears, traces of it remain in songs, myths, and collective memory. So if I had to choose between burning worlds and saving their echoes, I would say Tsar Stangra is ultimately about ensuring that the echoes are never silenced. The fire is only there to illuminate them.”
The presence of traditional Bulgarian elements like the tambura gives your music a very specific identity.
Do you ever feel that cultural authenticity becomes a responsibility rather than just an inspiration?
“Absolutely. The moment you decide to work with a specific culture, especially your own, there is a certain responsibility that comes with it. From the very beginning, I wanted Tsar Stangra to sound as authentic as possible rather than merely ‘inspired’ by Bulgaria. As a string instrument player who comes from a bass and guitar background, I learned early on that small changes can have a much greater impact than people realize. Sometimes adding the right instrument does more for authenticity than endlessly trying to imitate its character with something else. That is why the tambura became such an important part of the band’s identity. Instead of deforming an acoustic guitar, adding effects to an electric guitar, or using a superficially similar instrument that happened to be available in Québec, I preferred to use an instrument that genuinely belongs to the musical tradition I wanted to represent. The tambura immediately opens musical possibilities, melodies, and textures that naturally lead the music toward a Bulgarian sound. For me, cultural authenticity is not about creating a museum piece or following rigid rules. It is about respecting the source material enough to let it speak with its own voice. Inspiration is what starts the process, but responsibility is what keeps you honest while you are creating.”
The album artwork portrays ritual, religion, and fire as intertwined forces.
Do you see symbolism in Tsar Stangra as a parallel language to the music itself?
“Absolutely. For me, symbolism is not decoration; it is another language. Music can communicate emotions and atmosphere, lyrics can communicate ideas, but symbols can communicate entire layers of meaning instantly, often without words. The cover of ‘Химните на разрушените светове’ is a good example. On the surface, it depicts Kukeri – figures from Bulgarian pagan tradition – surrounded by fire and confronting a Christian basilica from Québec. It would be easy to interpret that as a simple conflict between paganism and Christianity, but the symbolism is broader than that. The album itself is built around collisions: Bulgaria and Canada, memory and modernity, preservation and transformation, folklore and black metal. The image visualizes those tensions in a single scene. Fire is particularly important because it is never just destruction. Fire destroys, but it also purifies, illuminates, and transforms. Many traditional rituals use fire not simply to erase something, but to mark a passage from one state to another. That idea runs through the entire album. The goal is not to burn history away, but to burn what causes cultures, languages, and memories to be forgotten. In that sense, the visual symbolism functions much like the music. Just as Bulgarian folk melodies and black metal riffs create meanings that neither tradition could express alone, the symbols on the artwork create a parallel narrative that expands what the listener hears. The album can be understood through the songs, but the imagery tells another part of the story. Together, they form a single language – one spoken through sound, words, and symbols at the same time.”
Many bands use folklore as aesthetic decoration.
Your work feels more like historical interpretation or even reactivation.
Where do you draw the line between art and cultural narration?
“I think the line is impossible to draw perfectly, and I accept that from the beginning. The moment you turn history, folklore, or mythology into art, a certain degree of romanticization is inevitable. Before I write a new album – or even a single song – I already know that what comes out will not be a history book. It will be an interpretation filtered through emotion, memory, personal experience, and imagination. What matters to me is honesty. I try to stay faithful to the spirit of the culture even when I am not reproducing every historical detail. Bulgarian folklore, pagan traditions, and historical figures are not props or decorations for me; they are living sources of meaning. My goal is not to reconstruct the past exactly as it was, because that is impossible. My goal is to create a dialogue between the past and the present. In that sense, Tsar Stangra exists somewhere between art and cultural narration. The songs are not academic lectures, but they are not pure fantasy either. They are artistic interpretations rooted in real traditions, real texts, and real memories. If a listener finishes a song and becomes curious enough to learn about Bulgarian history, folklore, or literature, then the music has done something valuable. It has not preserved the culture in a museum; it has helped bring it back into motion.”
Tracks like ‘Khan Asparuh‘ and ‘The Return of the Native God‘ suggest figures rather than abstract emotions.
Do you approach songwriting more like a historian, a storyteller, or something else entirely?
“I don’t really see those approaches as mutually exclusive. Ideally, a song should do all three things at once: tell a story, transmit a piece of history, and ignite the imagination. When I write for Tsar Stangra, I am not trying to recreate the past with academic precision, nor am I simply inventing fantasy. I’m more interested in creating a bridge between historical memory and personal experience. A figure like Khan Asparuh is not just a historical character; he becomes a symbol through which listeners can explore ideas of migration, identity, perseverance, and cultural survival. In the same way, ‘The Return of the Native God’ is less about a literal deity than about reconnecting with forgotten parts of collective memory. The educational aspect is important to me. If someone finishes a song and feels compelled to learn more about Bulgarian history, folklore, language, or mythology, then the music has already accomplished something meaningful. But information alone is not enough. Music should allow people to live the story emotionally, to imagine themselves walking through those landscapes, hearing those legends, and experiencing those struggles. In that sense, I would say my role is somewhere between a storyteller, a cultural interpreter, and a dreamer. The songs are meant to teach something, but also to awaken curiosity and create a space where history, myth, and imagination can coexist.”
Your music often balances ferocious black metal intensity with deeply melodic, almost ritualistic passages.
How do you decide when a moment should feel violent and when it should feel ceremonial?
“There is no single formula for that. Every song is treated differently, and the balance between violence and ceremony depends on many factors. In many cases, we begin with a poem, a historical text, or a piece of folklore. These sources rarely express only one emotion. They often move between sorrow, pride, longing, reverence, anger, or transcendence. The music evolves around those emotional shifts. When a text becomes more confrontational or tragic, the black metal elements naturally become more aggressive. When it enters a more reflective, spiritual, or mythical space, the music often takes on a ceremonial character. Sometimes the process works in the opposite direction. A riff already carries a strong emotional identity before any lyrics exist. In those cases, we listen carefully to what the music seems to be saying and then search for texts, themes, or ritualistic elements that resonate with that feeling. The goal is not simply to alternate between heavy and atmospheric passages, but to create a dialogue between different emotional states. For me, black metal and ritual are not opposites. Both are forms of intensity. One expresses itself through force and conflict, while the other expresses itself through reverence, mystery, and connection to something larger than oneself. The challenge is finding the moment where one naturally transforms into the other.”
The collaboration between Canadian and Bulgarian musicians in Tsar Stangra is unusually organic for such a geographically split project.
What has been the biggest challenge in making that distance creatively irrelevant?
“I honestly do not think there was a single biggest challenge. Every stage of the project was a challenge. Accepting the concept, writing the songs, arranging them, rehearsing them, choosing the visuals, bringing them to the stage – every step involved debate, negotiation, and sometimes outright collision between different artistic instincts. A comparison I often make is that it sometimes felt like hiring doom metal musicians to play in a speed metal band. Naturally, doom musicians will want to slow things down, emphasize atmosphere, and approach music from a different perspective. Something similar happened in Tsar Stangra. The project was founded with a very specific mission: to preserve and promote Bulgarian culture through metal. But not everyone came into the band with the same cultural background, musical references, or priorities. There were many moments where the music wanted to move in one direction while I was trying to pull it back toward the Bulgarian identity at the heart of the project. What made it work was that nobody simply surrendered their vision. The Canadian musicians challenged my ideas, and I challenged theirs. Sometimes that was frustrating, but it forced us to justify every artistic choice instead of following habits or clichés. Looking back, the distance between Bulgaria and Québec was never the real obstacle. The real challenge was bridging different musical cultures, different creative instincts, and different ways of understanding what the project should be. In the end, the album became an interesting compromise. You can hear songs that lean more toward traditional black metal and others that sound unmistakably Bulgarian. Rather than hiding those tensions, we embraced them. In many ways, that struggle became one of the central themes of the album itself: different worlds colliding without losing their identities.”
Folklore-based metal sometimes risks romanticizing the past.
How do you ensure that the historical and mythological material you use stays alive rather than becoming nostalgic?
“I think some degree of romanticization is inevitable. The moment you write a song about an ancient hero, a forgotten language, or a mythological figure, you’re already looking at the past through the lens of the present. I accepted that long ago. The challenge is not to eliminate romanticization, but to avoid turning history into a museum exhibit. For me, folklore and history only remain alive when they continue to provoke questions, emotions, and even disagreements. I am not interested in presenting the past as a perfect golden age. Every culture had its triumphs, contradictions, strengths, and failures. What interests me is the dialogue between those worlds and our own. In Tsar Stangra, the historical and mythological material is not there to escape the present. It is there to help us understand it. Questions of identity, language, exile, faith, memory, cultural survival, and belonging are just as relevant today as they were centuries ago. If a listener finishes a song and becomes curious enough to learn more about Bulgarian history, read a poem, research a forgotten tradition, or simply reflect on their own roots, then the material is no longer nostalgic. It is alive and still doing what folklore has always done: connecting people to something larger than themselves.”
The idea of ‘broken worlds‘ suggests fragmentation rather than unity.
Do you see the album as an attempt to repair those fragments, or to accept that they can never be fully restored?
“The title ‘Hymns of the Broken Worlds’ is less about repairing fragments than about learning to live inside their collision. The album was built around a clash of cultures, perspectives, and artistic instincts. At the beginning of the process, I resisted that reality. Tsar Stangra was founded with a very clear cultural mission, and I wanted everything to move in a single direction. But as the years passed, I realized that the tension itself had become part of the story. The album was written largely in Québec, yet it is deeply rooted in Bulgarian history, language, and mythology. The musicians involved brought different musical backgrounds, different sensibilities, and sometimes very different ideas about where the music should go. What emerged was not a pure reconstruction of a lost world, nor a complete surrender to a new one. It became a compromise between worlds that collided and left marks on one another. In that sense, I do not think the album argues that the fragments can be fully restored. History does not work that way, and neither does culture. But neither does it accept fragmentation as a defeat. The record embraces the scars left by these encounters and tries to find meaning within them. The broken worlds remain broken, but through music they can still speak to one another, and perhaps that dialogue is more valuable than any illusion of perfect unity.”
The inclusion of guest vocalists adds additional voices to your narrative universe.
Do these external voices represent characters, spirits, or different perspectives within the same mythological framework?
“The guest vocalists do not represent specific characters, spirits, or supernatural entities within the narrative. Their role is actually much more collective than individual. Folk music, at its core, is communal music. It belongs to a people rather than to a single person. Because of that, I wanted some moments on the album to feel less like the voice of one isolated narrator and more like the voice of an entire community. When additional voices appear, they create the impression of a crowd, a nation, or a gathering of people united by a common memory, belief, or purpose. Instead of hearing one individual praying, mourning, celebrating, or invoking the divine, you hear many voices participating in the same ritual. That collective dimension is very important to the themes of the album, because the stories, myths, and traditions explored on ‘Hymns of the Broken Worlds’ are not personal possessions. They belong to generations of people who carried them forward. In that sense, the guest vocalists expand the perspective of the music. They transform certain passages from personal reflection into communal experience, giving the impression that an entire population is remembering, lamenting, or calling upon its gods together.”
If Tsar Stangra’s music is a form of resurrection, what exactly is being resurrected?
Ancient gods, cultural identity, forgotten histories, or something more personal within yourselves?
“I do not think Tsar Stangra is literally resurrecting anything. Ancient gods remain ancient gods, history remains history, and the past cannot truly be brought back to life. What can be resurrected is our relationship with them. Modern society often treats mythology, folklore, and even history as museum pieces: things to observe, categorize, and then forget. Tsar Stangra tries to transform them back into living experiences. When someone listens to a song about Khan Asparuh, the Kukeri, the Thracians, or an old Bulgarian poem, I hope they do more than learn a fact. I hope they imagine it, question it, dream about it, and perhaps feel a connection to something larger than themselves. In that sense, what is being resurrected is memory. Not memory as a collection of dates and names, but memory as a living force that continues to shape identity. The ancient gods, the myths, the language, and the forgotten histories become symbols through which people can rediscover parts of themselves that modern life often neglects. For me personally, Tsar Stangra is also an attempt to resurrect curiosity. Every song is an invitation to open a door that most people did not even know existed. If someone finishes the album and starts researching Bulgarian history, folklore, language, or mythology on their own, then the resurrection has already happened.”
‘Hymns Of The Broken Worlds‘ stands as a meeting point between past and present, between Québec and Bulgaria, between black metal aggression and the quiet power of tradition.
Tsar Stangra do not use folklore as decoration, but as a living language, one that continues to evolve through sound, symbolism, and storytelling.
The result is an album that does not attempt to rebuild lost worlds exactly as they once were, but instead allows their echoes to return in a new form.
A reminder that even fragments can carry voices, and that forgotten stories can still burn brightly when given the right atmosphere.
by Fok ‘bs‘