A bit older release but it just arrived to my eye and ear and legends deserve a review in this webzine. Kampfar from Norway have been in the scene for almost 30 years now, from 1994 mastermind Dolk and his gang deliver their mixture of Norwegian black metal, pagan metal and folk in long epics and this is their brand new opus containing 6 songs coming just under 45 minutes long. For those who don’t know yet, Kampfar is ancient Norse war cry meaning Odin or Wotan. Lyrics are again in Norwegian titles but sung in English as I could hear at times about heritage, nature, battles, pride and staying true at least it is how I understood them from translating titles. It is fascinating how Kampfar builds up from aggressive blasts of raw heritage of Norse black metal to more gentle acoustic atmospheric melodies and then mid tempo pagan almost ritualistic song parts. Although there are longer songs on almost every Kampfar release, there is not one second they get boring, at the contrary, they are exciting if you open your mind and let the music take you to mountains, north wind on your face and standing proud never letting them grind you down, warrior’s heart is hard to stop. My personal favorites: Urkraft, Flammen Fra Nord, Rekviem.
Something’s Cursed are from Queens, New York and this is their new release. This one contains five songs of emotional melodic punk rock with some pop punk and even horror punk influences in some songs. The songs are mainly mid tempo with some more aggressive up tempo excursions like in awesome I Remember That Fall, one of my personal favorites on this little record. Vocals are nice, remind me at times of Greg from Bouncing Souls, some music too. The songs are really written nice with some memorable melodies that you catch yourself humming or whistling afterwards not even realizing that this is from this little release. Lyrics are personal and songs like Cigarettes & Therapy or maybe Societal Lobotomy are about to win you over. Good punk rock.
Prognan are from Croatia and this is their brand new opus. All I can say after listening to this one is that I am jaw dropped and just listen to this one over and over again. Well, it is very hard to describe this opus. Let’s start with that it is a concept album about WWI on these places which I can relate to because my greatgrandfather died in trenches fighting for Austro Hungary in the mud, blood and guts of this war in 1917. Music is epic black thrash death metal with some folk influenced vocals and even violin at the end of 28061914 start of the album with assassination of Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. Neprijatelj pred vratima shows all aggression of battle, and connects it with epic melancholy almost doomy second half of the song with clean vocals, violin and choir parts being one of my personal favorites on this opus. Lyrics are in Croatian and are fantastic, so if you do not speak Croatian, maybe try to translate them, because you will not regret it. As I understand this opus describes battles between royal Serbian army and Austro-Hungarian-German forces, retreat over the mountains, coming back to war after great losses, and finally coming home to suffer in peace again. The whole album is apocalyptic atmosphere, blast beats mix with sadness and you can almost smell blood, guts and decomposed bodies on no man’s land while listening. Guitar work is epic and fantastic with melodies, but vocals are one of the best in the genre, when growling you understand what is being sung about, but also transform into awesome clean sad voice. There are also folk influenced parts on majestic Golgota. This music reflects thoughts and suffering of ordinary soldier in war. Fantastic album and for sure one of the best Croatian releases in last ten years for sure!
KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 