DVVAD

The end of Gyepű and the beginning of DVVAD

DVVAD was founded in Szeged, Hungary, in early 2018 by two members. The band name derives from the Hungarian word dúvad: a dangerous wild animal and, by extension, a description of human behaviour. The group explicitly distinguishes that meaning from the mythology behind its later album title.

A 2021 Hungarian interview corrects the simplified idea that DVVAD appeared from nowhere in early 2018. Ádám Dudás and drummer Gergő had already rehearsed as DVVAD while Gyepű still existed. When Gyepű’s bassist moved to Budapest and its second guitarist lost interest, they chose to continue the newer project; Dudás remembered DVVAD forming around September and Gyepű ending by late October. The transition was therefore both a rupture and a transfer of an existing working relationship.

Burning Times, a split and a working lineup

The independently released Burning Times EP arrived at the end of 2018. A later split and several years of writing preceded the first full-length. During that period the line-up grew from two musicians to five, creating room for a second guitar and keyboard layers as well as a more complete studio process.

DVVAD began as a duo and did not initially know whether it would play concerts. Bassist Gilián Péter made the group a trio; the search for a second guitarist eventually brought Nagy László after an earlier short-lived attempt. By a December 2020 show in Debrecen the four-piece configuration was established. The independent Burning Times EP of 2018 and a later international split with Croatia’s Defiant supplied public markers while the band prepared a much longer work.

Slowing down to build atmosphere

DVVAD's early death/black-metal basis became more atmospheric and structurally unified on MRKLB. The band described the album as a rounded whole, built around endless cycles rather than a collection of unrelated songs. Expanded instrumentation helped turn that cyclical idea into a continuous four-part work.

Reception of MRKLB repeatedly points to continuity rather than a collection of singles. The four Roman-numbered movements move between black-, death- and doom-metal weight, post-metal breadth and short ambient releases of pressure. That reading fits the band’s own explanation of a cycle in which the markoláb consumes and releases the celestial bodies. It remains interpretation, but it is anchored in both the four-part structure and the stated folklore concept.

Dudás described Burning Times as intentionally simple, raw and crackling. During the next writing phase the band moved toward longer songs, more doom weight and a return of the atmospheric and psychedelic reach left behind in Gyepű. He brought most riffs, Nagy contributed sections, and the trained bassist Péter acted as a rigorous internal editor. Gergő devised the drum parts. This documented collaboration is more precise than assigning MRKLB to one author.

MRKLB: four movements and one cycle

MRKLB consists of four numbered movements lasting roughly forty-three minutes. Its title refers to the markoláb, a figure in Hungarian folklore said in one tradition to consume the sun and moon before releasing them to begin the cycle again. The cover by Balázs Pénzes translates that idea into repeated birth, death and return.

In 2021 roughly half the future album had been demoed, the band had declined concerts to concentrate on it, and at least one new composition lasted fourteen minutes. The finished MRKLB reorganised the material as numbered movements and added keyboardist Márta Zoltán. A later Hungarian review identifies a guest vocal by Forczek Ádám in the second movement and credits the visual work to Grafithamu and Toldi Dániel. Those details show the distance between the original duo and the layered debut.

From Szeged stages to a label edition

Talheim Records Germany released MRKLB on 24 November 2023 as TRG017CD. The six-panel digipak is limited to 500 copies. This documented edition is the point at which the band’s first full-length entered the TRG catalogue; Burning Times remains an independent release.

The label search was not merely administrative: a published review notes that listeners had already encountered versions of the material live before the studio album appeared. The 2023 release therefore joined a performance history to the carefully unified record. What remains undocumented is the practical path from the independent Burning Times phase to Talheim Records Germany: first contact, demo circulation, contract timing and the exact point at which the album sequence became fixed.

After the first full-length

Current sources list a five-member band and continued activity, but later personnel changes and work after MRKLB need direct confirmation. Any future chapter should preserve the distinction the band itself makes between the meaning of DVVAD and the mythology of MRKLB.

Language, scene and the work around the band

Dudás connected the change from Gyepű’s Hungarian lyrics to DVVAD’s English words with his own limits as a Hungarian lyricist, not with rejection of the language. He admired writers able to use Hungarian with precision but chose English for this project. The same interview locates DVVAD in a small yet active Szeged extreme-metal scene, where members also worked with Boru, From the Sky and Ahriman. Those parallel commitments slowed scheduling, but they also brought different approaches into the rehearsal room.