Mørke gravers kammer

Once the second wave of black metal was over, perfectly conformed with the end of the 90’s, the time came for more open-minded musicians to try their luck, and here’s how Khold came to piss… sorry, pass. And their appearance was rather timely having in mind that the major players of the past decade (Emperor, Satyricon, Enslaved, The Kovenant, Immortal, Dakthrone, etc.) had already started looking elsewhere, expanding their horizons outside the rigid black metal canons. In other words, black metal didn’t exist anymore in its pristine, established form at the beginning of the new millennium; it actually went down the road to oblivion faster than the groovy/post-thrashy carnival even. Dimmy Borgir, Cradle of Filth and Mayhem were trying to hold onto its bombastic, operatic swagger for a bit, but their palette was already enlarging with other ingredients, too. Saving the good old black metal from hitting the bottom suddenly became a most urgent issue, especially when even Quorthon (R.I.P.) himself didn’t show any interest in salvaging his own offspring, destroying it further with this divisive shaky “Destroyer of Worlds”.

Khold came splashing (literally) on the scene with “Masterpiss of Pain”, a raw pristine statement of intent displaying black metal in its evilest, coldest, bleakest form combining fast compulsive outbreaks in the vein of early Bathory with dirgy, doomy misanthropy taken straight from the early Barathrum opuses. The mixture worked on all counts giving a big breath of fresh air to the stagnant field, and it all stayed grimey and grisly on the sophomore. The album reviewed here didn’t have to change the formula, and it didn’t presenting the same gloomy, sinister amalgam in all its grand misery and pain. The familiar mixture is immediately brought to the fore by “Atselgraver”, misanthropic black metal mania at its grimiest; and things don’t get much cleaner later “Dod” dirgying forward in a minimalistic, doomy fashion, and “Niflehimr” notching it up in the aggression category with less controlled hyper-blasts those bringing sweet memories from times a bit before the light. The two sides alternate throughout as “Hevnerske” is another high-octane doomster although “Med Nebb Og Klor” breaks the alternation being a sudbued epic mid-pacer. The title-track preserves the moody minimalism with more doomy gloomy strokes, and “Opera Seria” adds more to the officious doomy appeal of the album. “Sjeleskjender” desirably brings back the more brutal ways of execution blasting its way out of the instilled dirgy funeral atmosphere before “Vardoger” restores the dominant setting with another slab of heavy ship-sinking riffs. “Kamp” combines both approaches for one diverse spell-binding epitaph with some groovy aesthetics sneaking in recalling the Satyricon variations on those gimmicks at the time.

“Beautiful” tasty stuff, the band carrying on in a familiar manner thus keeping the core of their fanbase hooked all the way. There was, and still isn’t, nothing wrong with this kind of delivery, the guys carving a niche for themselves which at some stage saw no other similar practitioners occupying it having in mind that Barathrum acquired a more accessible, more playful approach on their later endeavours, leaving Khold to deal with the more dangerous, more intimidating side of the black metal audience, also with two other projects in which members of this infernal gang are involved with, Tulus and Sarke, both formations operating within similar confines to those of Khold, with more obvious stretches towards other genres (progressive, thrash) on more or less regular bases. The guys haven’t disappointed on any of those fronts with six albums from the Khold repertoire firmly in the “dirt and piss” regardless of the better production qualities witnessed on the last two instalments, marching forward unperturbed by the changes on the metal arena which will always find a place for its uglier, angrier, blacker offspring.

A dark and raw recording here, but not so raw that you cannot hear the riffs that goes alongside this obscure album. I find it to be quite interesting, better than just "decent", actually would give this an average rating because I enjoyed the music and overall aura to this album. It's for the most part slow, but there are instances where this one emits some forcefulness. Overall it's quite a creepy album, but admirable. With just a little over 38 minutes all of it is not in English, however, the music is really dark and depressing. It's a definition of what black metal should spout out, but it isn't one to emit super positive ratings as seen from others.

However, this release is still pretty cool it's entirety. I enjoyed the production quality, the guitar riffs and the production sound. Again it's slow but definitely worth checking out. It wasn't one that is overtly aggressive, it's tantamount is truly admirable and not really any splint of diversity. I think that Khold's intentions here is to demonstrate the true potential of the band, but for me, I wish that it was written in English. That being said, it still has qualities that reflect talent and creativity. It's well warranted that one should give it a try. I wouldn't buy into any negative ratings, but it is just average.

One album to chill to on a wintry day, wishing that some of which dismay brings one to this reaping release quieting discontent. The music here in its' entirety is a mixture of tremolo picking of chords and some segues into a more tranquil sound. All and all, it's quite morbid, but palitable. An album that points the direction to the utterly spellbinding raw appeal and darkness enthroned. No blast beats whatsoever, it's mostly featured with mild guitar riffs with distortion and the mixing quality was to a point to where you can hear the riffs clearly plus the vocals don't overshadow the guitars or drowned them out.

Everything such as mixing quality is well done here and I think it's not an album that'll put you to sleep, it's one that musically it implies creativity and imaginary stints of havoc bleeding in utter darkness. I do think that since the band is currently active according to records, they'll make more albums that progress from this. But yes, average is what I ultimately think that it is. So don't expect anything extreme here. This is an album that is true Norwegian black metal, just a little more raw and rears it's ugly head to listeners putting you in sort of a trance with musical trauma.

Overall, I give this one a "C" because there could've been more creativity bestowed here, even though I think it's well played out. It's not like early Darkthrone albums, it's a black metal album that's totally dark, but a production quality that emits force plus does justice in hearing everything clearly muscally and vocally speaking. Yes, 10 years old since it's original recording, maybe a little more, but one to pull out when you feel like hearing some raw black metal that's played in such a way that it'll truly move you in it's morbidity. There are actually 2 drawbacks that are blatantly obvious here: the fact that it's not in English and the riff quality could've been a bit more creative. Pick it up if you're looking for darkness visible.

Occasionally one happens across an album that's totally decent. Yes, you heard me right. Totally decent. Almost NOTHING exceptional or stand-outish about the entire album, but nothing horrible either. Morke Gravers Kammer is currently enjoying its second straight spin in my CD drive, and I'm here to report that it's... well... totally decent.

The music is groovy, rock-ish BM in the vein of newer Darkthrone, with perhaps hints of Craft thrown in here and there. The production is fairly clear. The guitar tone is extremely reminiscent of Darkthrone's on Sardonic Wrath, very heavy and meaty (for BM, anyway). The drumming is mainly mid-paced to slow with the odd blastbeat. The vocals are a slightly above-average phlegmy shriek, again very similar to newer Darkthrone. The bass is actually a little more prominent than is usual for black metal.

There's no problems with the music, the album is just... really average. It's fairly pleasant to listen to, but nothing that warrants repeated spins. And it gets a few extra points because it was funny to watch my girl headbanging to Dod (probably the best track on the album). Buy it, don't buy it, download it, don't download it... I could care less. I'm going to go watch Aliens now.

Let's clear something up that many people seem to always mistake about the metal genre. Metalheads would usually say that extreme metal music MUST be nothing but blastbeats, fast paced, screeching/low growls and so on. You get what I'm saying right? So with this said, let's move on with the analysis of Khold's album...

Now Khold are one of the next waves of true Norweigen black metal or they're said to be that. Khold in themself are a pretty unique and interesting black metal group because they're not you're stereotypical black metal group nor are they you're stereotypical extreme group. Yep, they're an extreme metal group, but they show it in a very different sense. Their approach on black metal is unique because they add alot of groove into their metal. Hence the name that some people call Khold's music: "groove black metal." This is what caught my attention about the group, and I couldn't help but buy the album... but the album isn't that impressive I hate to say.

The beginner "Atselgraver" gives a quick into to the group, with the sludgey-like guitar playing with the slow paced beats. Basically this is what the group is about as I mentioned, but whoa!... they speed up in that song! It also shows that they can have speed within their music... and the vocals are your basic style of black metal singing. "Dod", which is also a music video and (in my opinion) is the best track on the CD, is a catchy-as-fuck track (even though all the lyrics are in the native Norweigen tongue, the lyrics are memorable for one who doesn't know the language) and had me playing that same track over and over again. So far... so good... but then after track three ("Niflheimr", also a speedy track and an alright track) the album seems to be quite redundant and gets boring. Each track after the third song sound the same and are super, SUPER duper slow and for me, I'm not much a big fan of such slow paced music (if I was, then I would be listening to Type O Negative; a group which I don't like at all).

I respect the fact that they have a different approach on black metal, but they need to perfect it better. The tracks, after one listen or two, would seem to be interesting, but like I said, the tracks seems all alike except the first three tracks. Let alone, there's no range within the vocal range; it's very monotonus and the drumming tends to be one dimensional. You can definitally hear the bass guitar which is always good, and the guitars sound good, but like I said the music needs alittle more speeding! Maybe it's me for not being a huge fan of such SLOW music or maybe I could be correct, but this album can get boring. That doesn't make this album a terrible piece of work because some of the tracks are alright and this is their approach on black metal and it's respectable as I remarked. Though they're not for my taste but it's something different and not like most black metal. I mean lets be real now, most black metal releases today are only blast beats, hardly any bass backing up the music and sonic sounding guitars so this definitally beats the hell out of hearing the same thing every goddamn day on my stereo. If you're a fan of slow paced dark music with black metal vocals and no blast beats, then you might enjoy this unique group. They're extreme alright, but not the typical extreme black metal group you come across daily.

Ear catchers: Dod, Atselgraver, Hevnerske