Welcome to Kvlt Kolvmn. The temps are high, but our hearts remain frostbitten. Black metal excellence continues apace. Let's go.
This month's edition features some of our favorite black metal releases of the year. Some new stuff, some old-but-also-new stuff, some avant-garde stuff. As is tradition, black metal's diversity is among the best in the extreme metal world as a whole. May was a perfect example of that.
So lock in. It's time for more chilly goodness during these brutal early summer months.
Stay frosty.
-Jonathan Adams
Winter’s Crown
…And Oceans - The Regeneration Itinerary
It seems a general pattern in life that things tend to get better as they age. Relationships, liquors and wines, general application of wisdom, hobbies… all more nuanced and exquisite with time. While our bodies may age and lose some of their youthful savor, the things the mind and heart enjoys only tend to improve. Finland’s long-vaunted, long-dead, and now fully alive black metal group …And Oceans are proof of this concept. Since their resurgence after a decade-long hiatus, their songwriting seems more refined, their instrumentation more brutal and delicious, and their general sonic imprint even more lasting. Their third outing since regrouping in 2020, The Regeneration Itinerary, is as complex and beautiful an album as we’ve come to expect from this revitalized group, and it’s also one of their career best.
From an instrumental and songwriting standpoint, there’s little about The Regeneration Theory that feels less than excellent and in keeping with the band’s standards for their most recent work. Opener “Inertiae” serves as an excellent palate setter, preparing the senses for the majesty of tracks like “Prophetic Mercury Implement” and the industrial strangeness of “The Discord Static,” blending new sounds with traditional excellence in ways that work more often than they don’t. While …And Oceans have never shied away from experimentation, The Regeneration Itinerary feels like their boldest move in new directions yet, while maintaining all the hallmarks that have made their resurgence so magical.
It’s hard to overstate how impressive …And Oceans’ return to the black metal spotlight has been. In terms of quality, there are few bands in the space matching their level, and The Regeneration Itinerary is further proof of this. The bolder the experimentation, and more complex the arrangements, the better this band sounds, and this latest release may be the most stark example of their highly unusual success as a returning legacy band. Here’s to many more such records to come!
-JA
Best of the Rest
Walg - V
Here I am again, covering another Dutch band. Ironically, our national Black Metal scene rarely does it for me, and I consequently had never really listened to this two man machine called Walg before. “Walging” translates to “disgust”, with their band name being the verbal imperative of that noun. These prolific Lowlanders have managed to release five albums in as many years, and show no sign of stopping or of slowing down, while barely any fatigue has set into their furious formula.
On V, they offer another scything, scintillating slab of melodic black metal. Fast drumming, incisive, icy tremolos and suitably unhinged yet tightly controlled black metal vocals run the show here, with the occasional clean vocals and acoustic or folky arrangement breaking through the sheets of bone-chilling musical sleet. The melodies are especially strong here, with “De Adem van het Einde” (“The Endings Breath”), the second half of “Het Schimmen Dialoog” (The Shades’ Dialogue”), and “Ego-Dood” (you guessed it, “Ego-Death”) being personal favorites in that regard.
Robert Koning impressively handles composition and all of the instrumentation and arrangements here, but I’m equally impressed by Yorick Keijzer’s snarling Dutch disgust on the mic. He manages to really sell the seething menace here, and the way he rolls his r’s and leans into our northern Dutch guttural g’s really makes the language work for Walg, which isn’t always the case in my personal experience with Dutch music.
While Walg have a clear-cut formula and are cutting through the well’s frozen top layer to get through the stygian waters beneath on each subsequent album, the prolific dips of the bucket have not yet led to any discernible dips in quality. The production on this one (especially in the integration of the melodic arrangements and the busier parts) sounds clearer and better articulated to me than it did on previous albums (which I admittedly have only provided with a shamefully cursory listen), and the melodies and arrangements show no signs of slumping after five albums in as many years.
If you like your Black Metal melodic, tight, hungry and with nary an ounce of frostbitten fat to trim off its grinning skeleton, why not give Walg a listen. They might make your stank-face walg in all the right ways.
-BK
Grey Aura - Zwart vierkant: Slotstuk
It’s been a while since an avant-garde black metal album has really grabbed me (barring whatever Mamaleek is doing of course) and here Grey Aura, reaching out from beyond their murky, signature sound and grabbing me thoroughly by the jugular. Zwart vierkant: Slotstuk has that impossible to replicate ferocity that I need for avant-garde black metal to truly move me. Beyond the flamboyance, beyond the theatrical nature of the music, Zwart vierkant: Slotstuk feels like Grey Aura are about to explode, riding their music off of a rail and into a night pocked with blazing fire. This energy is also present on this release on even higher amounts than before, as Zwart vierkant: Slotstuk manages to be both darker and faster than any of their previous releases.
In places, like on my favorite track, “De ideologische seance”, the music feels veritably heavy metal inspired, with large, boisterous riffs underpinning the magnificent energy of the vocals. These vocals use the band’s native Dutch to an incredible degree, accentuating the sibilant gutturals of its sound by deepening them into unsettling growls, unfurling them into blood-curdling screams or utilizing them in almost spoken-word phrases that add to the urgency of the release. Whatever they are doing, the vocals always have that uncapturable quality that makes black metal avant-garde, centering the theatrical and exaggerated in the band’s sound. Add in fearless drumming that has excellent uses of embellishing symbols (for which I direct you again to my aforementioned favorite track), killer and unexpectedly contorted bass, and pristine guitar sounds that shine like diamonds amongst the overall oppressive murk of the sound, and you’ve got yourself a true killer of an album.
-Eden Kupermintz