Kvelertak's debut album is the best thing I've heard in years.
By Goly 3 Comments
I've been in sort of a gaming hiatus phase, mainly due because it's summer, I'm abroad, and the only machine I can play game on is one of those tiny Eee PCs. Due to that I've been listening to a shit ton of music. Well actually, forget what I just said. I've been listening to Kvelertak's debut album. A LOT. It's probably the only thing I've been listening to since it was released with the exception of Go It Alone's "Histories", because that album kicks ass and is probably my favorite album of all time since I discovered every song pretty much tells the story of my whole life until now. But that's another story, maybe I'll write about that album in another post.
So why is this album great? Well it just is. Musically it's heavy, with great great riffs, and most of the riffs sound like classic rock riffs, but it's also got an edge mainly because the singer's growls sound a lot like what you would hear in a black metal record. Dude did I just say the riffs sound like classic rock? I'm listening to title track "Ulvetid" and the bridge totally sounds like a tipical black metal riff. Which brings me to my next point and it's that this album is pretty much unclassifiable. They've taken the best of every rock genre and subgenre and mixed them altogether in a very subtle way so that whenever they feel like a type of riff sounds good, they just put it in the song. While I listen to their songs I can't help imagine these norwegian rock loving dudes that just combine all their influences while writing a song without any kind of effort.
The second track Mjod has just ended, and I've put it on again because it really is worth talking about. It's their first single and they released a very controversial video that apparently was censored by Youtube. That sucks because when I saw the video I thought that, yeah, it was a bit violent, yes, it was a tiny bit disgusting, but fascinating also. And seriously, I've seen way more disturbing stuff on Youtube, but maybe I just don't know and I was watching the censored version. Whatever. For me it totally represents the band, their harshness, their wild partying antics while staying true to their roots. Just watch the video and tell me if it isn't a perfect video for the song.
Anyway, I think I could be talking about this album forever and all its intricacies, eventhough I don't understand any of the lyrics because they're all sung in Norwegian, but it doesn't matter much to me since the music is so great and until I learn the language or ask some guy from norway what the singer is singing/growling about I'll just imagine that it's some caveman they found in Scandinavia and hired him to sing for a rock band.
This is my first serious post, and as such many of you will think it sucks, or maybe not I don't know, the truth is I'm terribly bored and I felt like talking about what has been the soundtrack to this weird summer I've had and what I think is (let me think about it for a second before saying it... ok) the best album released in a long time, and a soon to become classic.