Posted in Whathaveyou on March 4th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
There’s a halfway decent chance that by the time this post goes live, the Majestic Mountain Records Fest Oslo 2022 — which I got official permission to call the MMR Fest last time I wrote about it — will have announced more bands for its lineup on June 17-18. It’s been that kind of week, not sure what else to tell you.
In any case, whether this post ends up with five new additions or 10, the lineup is taking shape and growing more formidable as it goes, drawing from the festival’s home base in Norway, the label’s home base in Sweden, as well as Germany, the UK and even the US, which, hey, that’s where I live! Nice to see a nod every now and again.
More than that, it’s an impressive display of reach on the part of the festival, and I’m assuming that barring disaster this won’t be the last one or the only city in which it takes place, particularly the first time out. Bottom line? Looks fun. Would attend.
Here you go:
The Majestic Mountain Records newswire is here with a little boost. We’re cooking up some massive riff-shenanigans for Majestic Mountain Fest // Oslo and cannot wait to let all the cats out of the bag. Today we bring you glad tidings of yet FIVE more bands that you’ll be able to catch live during the weekend of 17-18th June.
Early Bird passes are sold out but regular tickets are available through the event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/667812601039777/
Today, we are pleased to announce that:
KITE Wolves In Haze REDSCALE Laser Dracul Void Commander
Will join Jointhugger, Saint Karloff, Grand Cadaver, Kal-El, Old Horn Tooth, The Kings Pistol, MaMa Doom, Häxmästaren, Bogwife, Electric Hydra and more to come!
Thank you all so much for your support and enthusiasm for this event. We cannot wait to bang our heads with you in June!
Posted in Radio on October 15th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
An honest moment: In my head, nobody listens to this show. Three people max, and I’m usually one of them. I don’t even think my mom listens anymore, which really is fair enough.
I expect more or less after every episode that the hammer is going to come down and Gimme — which regularly hosts metal luminaries for guest spots and even among its regular DJ roster has people relevant enough to make me scratch my head and wonder what I’m doing there — is going to shitcan my ass. Too weird, not enough metal, general you-suck as the cause. Or maybe I’m not even worth firing, I don’t know.
All I can do is put together what I think are cool playlists that offer something different and new. I love new music. I love the next album, the potential of new bands, the way sounds grow over time. And I don’t always like talking, but I do love sharing music and doing this show lets me do that, even if you’re only reading this and seeing the playlist as one of the countless lists of bands on the internet with new stuff out. That’s fine. Hopefully you check something out and dig it.
There.
Thanks for listening if you do and/or reading. I hope you enjoy.
The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at: http://gimmemetal.com.
Full playlist:
The Obelisk Show – 10.15.21
Kryptograf
Cosmic Suicide
Cosmic Suicide
Simple Forms
Reaching for the Shadow
Reaching for the Shadow
Uncle Woe
Nine Kinds of Time
Nine Kinds of Time
Apostle of Solitude
Apathy in Isolation
Until the Darkness Goes
VT
Gristmill
Stone Rodeo
Heavy Everything
Snowy Dunes
Medicinmannen
Sastrugi
Octopus Ride
If You’re Happy
II
Wooden Fields
Should We Care?
Wooden Fields
Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships
Core Fragment
Core Fragment
VT
Kanaan
Bourdon
Earthbound
Ascia
The Great Iskandar
Vol. 1
KITE
Infernal Trails
Currents
LLNN
Imperial
Unmaker
Churchburn
Genocidal Rite
Genocidal Rite
Replicant
The Ubiquity of Time
Malignant Reality
VT
JAVA
24 Zimbabwe
24 Zimbabwe
The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is Oct. 29 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.
Posted in Features on October 8th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Oslo-based noise-and-then-some rockers KITE release their fourth album, Currents (review here), today through Majestic Mountain Records. Tomorrow night, the three-piece comprised of vocalist/guitarist Ronny Flissundet (also Damokles, Dunderbeist), bassist/vocalist Ole Helstad (also SÂVER) and drummer Bjarne Ryen Berg (Jacqueline) celebrate the offering with a hometown set as part of the second night of the Høstsabbat festival, bringing their particular brand of chaos and Currents‘ invitation to be overwhelmed to the low-ceilinged basement of Kulturkirken Jakob, where I have no doubt it will be duly intense and crushing as an aural and visual experience. I’ve been fortunate enough to be there several times. That basement is a thing of beauty in its dinge. I can hardly think of a better setting for KITE to mark the advent of Currents.
Too thoughtful in its attack to be haphazard, and too swinging in its rhythm to be staid on any level, Currents is a fucking beast. I just don’t know another way to say it. I’d love to come at you with some artsy bullshit about it, but god damn, this record is just nasty. It takes heavy influence from post-hardcore, and you can hear that a lot in the rawness of Flissundet‘s vocals, but it lands with ferocious weight in the guitar and bass — listen to “Ravines” — and you can still hear Berg‘s drums making it move. The nine-song/50-minute entirety of the record is streaming below — can’t miss it; the player’s huge — and sure, it’s got atmosphere. It’s not all pummel by any means, but even the slower-unfurling “Infernal Trails” or the title-track have their scathing moments to fit with the gnashing of “Idle Lights” or “Turbulence” earlier on, and by the time you get to “Unveering Static” at the end, there’s little else to do but to let KITE go as they will. They earn that trust, even if they seem to use it toward inevitably destructive ends.
A portion of my heart is in Norway this weekend, being blown away by seeing this live. Unfortunately, the rest of my ass is in New Jersey, doing very much not that thing.
Nonetheless, Flissundet was kind enough to present this track-by-track look at the album as a means of digging further and coinciding with the full stream on release day. I’m not calling it a premiere, because the thing’s public already, and it’s out right now, but whatever. It’s still something I thought worth highlighting and I hope you dig it.
Enjoy:
KITE, Currents Track-by-Track with Ronny Flissundet:
1. ‘Idle Lights’
This was originally meant to be much shorter, functioning as the intro part to ‘Turbulence’, but we had such a blast droning away in the studio, we couldn’t get enough of the eerie and repetitive mood. So, we just kept going, and it ended up as a separate instrumental, noisy track.
2. ‘Turbulence’
This was the first single to be released from the album and for us an obvious choice, since we feel it really sums up the sound of the album in many ways. The main riff was written years and years ago, but I never really found a place for it until the verses came along, not long before recording the demos. The theme spins around a nightmarish vibe, describing a post-apocalyptic Oslo in a dark and merciless winter.
3. ‘Murdress’
‘Murdress’ was meant for one of my other band projects, Dunderbeist, and almost got recorded in a totally different version back in 2019, but we dropped it off that album mostly because we never found the right kind of vocals for it. So, it was picked up again when initiating the demo rounds for Currents and ended up as one of the band’s favourite tracks. Both punky and doomy in a nice ’90s hardcore blend. And yeah, it’s about an ex.
4. ‘Ravines’
Written in affection for the magnificent dark green woodlands in Norway, a place I tend to explore when looking for peace and inspiration. Apparently, it worked with ‘Ravines’, despite not sounding too peaceful, it has a frenetic diversity between post-hardcore and a more stoner/sludge assault.
5. ‘Currents’
The second single from Currents is the title-track and it has a heavy ’90s groove and attitude about it, with guest vocals from the singer of my other band Damokles, Gøran Karlsvik. He gives a special touch, nerve and madness to the track. The song is about breaking free from destructive patterns, turning fortune around and just about staying afloat instead of being dragged under by treacherous currents.
6. ‘Infernal Trails’
Yet another ode to Norwegian nature, this one has a lot more peaceful feel to it. At least in the opening. The recording of the track is also very random and not too planned. We had very little structure when we started it, except the two parts with vocals, but the version that ended up on tape was recorded at 3:00am and just felt like pure magic at the time. I can’t deny that both Neurosis and Motorpsycho was somewhere on my mind during writing/recording.
7. ‘Ferret’
Another tune about breaking free! Which I think at the time while writing the album material was occupying my mind a whole lot. Being on my way out of a long relationship that had gone stale. This was like therapy from my inner voice and longings, manifested in words and music. I love how the arrangement of the song evolves from Part 1 to Part 2, changing the mood from a straightforward post-hardcore vibe to a more floating shuffle feel.
8. ‘Heroin’
Not about drugs but using drugs as a metaphor for addiction or that urge to continually perform and deliver on one’s own expectations. I set high goals for myself in life, even to the point of putting myself in some stressful situation at times, and ‘Heroin’ is sort of the result of that. It’s dark and heavy, mixing the unpleasant and eerie with the trippier and more atmospheric.
9. ‘Unveering Static’
This is the last song we wrote before entering the studio and it also turned out to be the album closer. It was written at a time when I was spinning around in my previously mentioned life situation. This endless feeling of monotony and stagnation, to an overwhelming extent. “The static keeps repeating” are the final words on the track, and on the album, kind of summing it up both with conclusion and confusion.
Posted in Reviews on September 30th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Today we pass the halfway point of the Fall 2021 Quarterly Review. It’s mostly been a pleasure cruise, to be honest, and there’s plenty more good stuff today to come. That always makes it easier. Still worth marking the halfway point though as we move inexorably toward 70 releases by next Tuesday. Right now, I just wish my kid would take a nap. He won’t.
That’s my afternoon, I guess. Here we go.
Quarterly Review #31-40:
Sons of Alpha Centauri, Push
Never ones to tread identical ground, UK outfit Sons of Alpha Centauri collaborate with Far/Onelinedrawing vocalist Jonah Matranga and Will Haven drummer Mitch Wheeler on Push, their material given relatively straight-ahead structural purpose to suit. I’m a fan of Sons of Alpha Centauri and their willingness to toss out various rulebooks on their way to individualized expression. Will Push be the record of theirs I reach for in the years to come? Nope. I’ve tried and tried and tried to get on board, but post-hardcore/emo has never been my thing and I respect Sons of Alpha Centauri too much to pretend otherwise. I admire the ethic that created the album. Deeply. But of the various Sons of Alpha Centauri collaborations — with the likes JK Broadrick of Godflesh or Gary Arce of Yawning Man — I feel a little left out in the cold by these tracks. No worries though. It’s Sons of Alpha Centauri. I’ll catch the next one. In the meantime, it’s comforting knowing they’re doing their own thing as always, regardless of how it manifests.
The programmed drums do an amazing amount to bring a sense of form to Doctors of Space‘s ultra-exploratory jamming. The Portugal-based duo combining the efforts of guitarist/programmer Martin Weaver (best known for his work in Wicked Lady) and synthesist/keyboardist Scott “Dr. Space” Heller of Øresund Space Collective (and many others) have been issuing jams by the month during a time largely void of live performances, and their get-together on July 30 resulted in seven pieces, four of which make up the 62 minutes of Studio Session July 2021. It’s hard to pick a highlight between the mellower, almost jazzy flow and cosmic wash of the 19-minute “Nighthawk,” and the more urgent setting out that “They Are Listening” provides, the more definitively space-rocking “Spirit Catcher” closing and “Bombsheller” with what feels like layers upon layers of swirl with keyboard lines cutting through, capping with a mellotron chorus, but any one of them is a worthy pick, and that’s a good problem to have.
In its readiness to go wherever the spirit of its eight included pieces lead, as well as in its openness of arrangement and folkish foundation, River Flows Reverse‘s first offering, the semi-eponymous When River Flows Reverse, reminds of Montibus Communitas. That is a compliment I don’t give lightly or often. The hour-long 2LP sees issue as part of the Psychedelic Source Records collective — Bence Ambrus and company — and with members of Indeed, Lemurian Folk Songs, Hold Station, on vocals and trumpet and banjo, etc., and a variety of instruments handled by Ambrus himself, the record is serene and hypnotic in kind, finding an outbound pastoralism that is physical as much as it’s swirling in mid-air. “Oriental Western” taps 16 Horsepower on the shoulder, but it’s in a meditation like “At the Gates of the Perennial” or the decidedly unraging “Rain it Rages” that the Hungarian outfit most seem to find themselves even as they get willfully lost in what they’re doing. Beautiful.
Even amid the lumbering noise rock extremity of the penultimate “Heroin,” Kite manage to work in a willfully lunkheaded Melvins riff. Cheers to the Oslo bashers-of-face on that. The second long-player from the Oslo-based trio featuring members of Sâver, Dunderbeist, Stonegard and others sets out in moody form with “Idle Lights” building to a maddening tension that “Turbulence” hits with a brick. Though not void of atmosphere or complexity in its construction, the bulk of Currents is harsh, a punishment derived from sludge-thickened post-hardcore evidenced by “Ravines” stomping into the has-clean-vocals centerpiece title-track, but it’s also clear the band are having fun. Closer “Unveering Static” brings back the non-screaming shouts, but it’s the earlier longest track “Infernal Trails” that perhaps most readily encapsulates their work, variable in tempo, building and crashing, chaotic and raging and lowbrow enough to be artsy, but still given an underpinning of heft to match any and all aggression.
A sophomore full-length from the Chicago-based four-piece of guitarist/vocalist Jessie Ambriz and Jon Slusher, bassist/vocalist Alan Strathmann and drummer/vocalist Quinn Curren, Starless‘ Hope is Leaving You runs a melancholy gambit from the prog-metal aggression of “Pendulum” to “Forest” reimagining Alice in Chains as a post-rock band, to soaring escapist pastoralia in “Devils,” to the patient psychedelic unfurling of “Citizen,” all the while remaining heavy of one sort or another; sonic, emotional, whatever it might be. Both. Cellist Alison Chesley (Helen Money) guests on “Forest” and the devolves-into-chaotic-noise closer “Hunting With Fire,” and Sanford Parker produced, but the band’s greatest strengths are the band itself. Hope is Leaving You isn’t going to be the feel-good hit of anyone’s summer in terms of general mood or atmosphere, but it’s the kind of release that’s going to hit a particular nerve with some who take it on, and I think I might be one of them.
Some 15 years on from their landmark first album, Olympia, Washington’s Wolves in the Throne Room make their debut on Relapse Records with duly organic stateliness on Primordial Arcana, bringing their particular and massively influential vision of American black metal to bear across tracks mostly shorter than those of 2017’s Thrice Woven (review here) — exceptions to every rule: the triumphant 10-minute “Masters of Rain and Storm” — as drummer/keyboardist/vocalist Aaron Weaver, guitarist/vocalist Nathan Weaver, guitarist/vocalist Kody Keyworth and guest bassist/vocalist Galen Baudhuin readily draw together ripping blasts with cavernous synth, acoustic guitar, percussion and whatever the hell else they want across eight songs and 49 minutes (that includes the ambient bonus track “Skyclad Passage,” which follows the also-ambient closer “Eostre”) for an immersive aesthetic victory lap that’s all the more resonant for being the first time they’ve entirely produced themselves. One hopes and suspects it won’t be the last. Their sixth or seventh LP depending on what one counts, Primordial Arcana sounds like the beginning of a new era for them.
London heavy rockers Oak perhaps ultimately did themselves a disservice by not putting out a full-length during their time together. Fin, like the end screen of a fancy movie, arrives as their swansong EP, their fourth overall in the last six years, and is made up mostly of two five-plus-minute tracks in “Beyond…” and “Broken King,” with the minute-long intro “Bells” at the start. With the soaring chorus of “Beyond…” led by vocalist Andy Valiant with the backing of bassist/mellotronist Richard Morgan and guitarist/synthesist Kevin Germain and the shove of Alex De La Cour‘s drums at their foundation, the clarity of production by Wayne Adams at Bear Bites Horse (Green Lung, Terminal Cheesecake, etc.) and the gang shouts that rouse the finish of “Broken King,” Oak end their run sounding very much like a band who had more to say. If their breakup really is permanent, they leave a lot of potential on the proverbial table.
By the time Los Angeles’ Deep Tomb get into the stomp of the 12-minute finishing track on their four-song/29-minute self-titled, they’ve already well demonstrated their propensity for scathing, harsh sludge. Opener “Colossus” has some percussion later in its seven minutes that sounds like something falling down stairs — maybe those are just the toms? — but it and the subsequent “Ascension From the Devoured Realm” aren’t exactly shy about where they’re coming from in their pummel and fuckall, and even though “Endless Power Through Breathless Sleep” starts out mellow and ends minimalist, in between it sounds like a they’re trying to use amps to remove limbs. And how much of “Lord of Misery” is song and how much is noisy chaos anyway? I don’t know. Where’s the line from one to the other? When does the madness end? And what’s left when it does? The broken glass from tube amps and soured everything.
A band that, sooner or later, somebody’s going to refer to as “heavyweights.” Perhaps it’s happened already. Justifiably, in any case, given the significant heft Poland’s Grieving bring to their riff-led fare on their first LP, built on a foundation of traditionalist doom but not necessarily eschewing modern methods in favor thereof throughout its six component tracks — the three-piece of vocalist Wojciech Kaluza, guitarist/bassist/synthesist Artur Ruminski and drummer Bartosz Licholap are willfully Sabbathian even in the shuffle of “This Godless Chapel” but neither are they shy about engaging more psychedelic spaces on “Foreboding of a Great Ruin,” however grounding the clear-headed melodies of the vocals might be, and the riff at the core of the hard-hitting “A Crow Funeral” would in another context be no less at home on a desert rock record. Especially as their debut, Songs for the Weary sounds anything but.
Heavy blues is at the core of Djiin‘s second album, Meandering Soul, but the Rennes, France, four-piece meet it head-on with both deeper weight and broader atmospherics, and lead vocalist Chloé Panhaleux owes as much to grunge as to post-The Doors brooding, her voice admirably organic even unto cracking in “Red Desert.” With the backing of guitarist Tom Penaguin, bassist Charlélie Pailhes and drummer Allan Guyomard, Djiin are no less at home in the creeping lounge guitar stretches of “Warmth of Death” than in the bursts of volume in opener “Black Circus” or the what-the-hell-just-happened-to-this-song prog jam out that caps the erstwhile punk of finale “Waxdoll.” Clearly, Djiin go where they want, when they want, from the folkish harmonies of “The Void” to the far-less-hinged crushing aggro “White Valley,” each piece offering something of its own on the way while feeding into the immersion of the whole.
Posted in Whathaveyou on September 14th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Do you want to dream with me for a while, or will it be too much of a downer? It’s okay. This one hits particularly bittersweet for me. I haven’t been to every Høstsabbat, but I’ve been to enough to see how the Oslo-based festival has grown and is growing, and the thought of not being there in a few weeks for this one is that much harder to take as the lineup is revealed today. Imagine the existential payoff of being engulfed in Mars Red Sky‘s melodic wash on the first night and obliterated by Conan the second, or seeing Greenleaf bring the blues of their latest album to life.
I’ve never seen Causa Sui. I’ve never seen Øresund Space Collective. These are bands I think and write about all the time. And newcomers like Slomosa, Jointhugger, Superlynx, Saint Karloff and Kryptograf, Hymn and Kite and Suncraft — these are some of the best up and coming acts the Norwegian heavy underground has to offer. Imagine being able to say you’ve seen Besvärjelsen. The thought of this happening and my not being there makes me genuinely sad.
It’s just a Fredag and a Lørdag, right? I could go! It could happen. It’s not a huge festival. I’ll mask up, of course… After a year and a half of so much bullshit, fear, sadness, ongoing, don’t I have to eventually just accept that this is what life is now and some things are worth the risk? That this is something I need to be the person I am? Who am I without live music?
And there you go. Bitter because I’m forced to reconcile myself to not seeing it. Sweet because I know in my heart these are good, passionate people who make this happen and because I believe in what they do, and even if I can’t/won’t be there to see it, it’s happening. I’m sorry to make this one about me. Really it’s about awesome bands and a righteous bill. If you’re going, enjoy. Live.
Full Høstsabbat 2021 lineup — though I’m hearing rumors about a Torsdag to-do as well — follows here:
HØSTSABBAT 2021 FULL LINE-UP ANNOUNCEMENT
In the spirit of optimistic caution and with safety precautions at the forefront of our minds, we step forward in preparation for our stages to resonate with the heavy once again! The riffs will rise from our home at Kulturkirken Jakob and our Norwegian stage at Verkstedet on Friday the 8th and Saturday the 9th of October.
Today we proudly release the full lineup and hope you are as excited as we are to come together again in celebration of the riff and all things heavy.
Daypasses and program will be out on Friday. Until then, get your festival ticket asap!
Posted in Whathaveyou on August 23rd, 2021 by JJ Koczan
The four-and-a-half minute lesson from the new KITE video actually doesn’t even take that long to learn. It is thus: KITE are still nasty as fuck. The Oslo-based sludge aggressors offered up Irradiance last year through Argonauta, and they’ll follow it on a quick turnaround Oct. 8 with Currentsvia the increasingly busy Majestic Mountain Records. Lead single “Turbulence” — with its Blair Witch-esque video down at the bottom of this post — is a rager and would not seem to be alone in that company if their prior work is anything to go by.
Their hardcore/post-hardcore roots remain present, but accompanied by a thickness of tone that stands them out from that genre even as it makes them all the more skin-peeling. There’s stripped-down and then there’s stripped-off, but really, you weren’t using that flesh anyway.
The PR wire, blessings and peace upon it, offered the following:
Norwegian Sludge Trio KITE Unearth Dark Nature and Discord on Savage New Record
Currents by KITE will be released 8th October on Majestic Mountain Records
Kite is a Norwegian three-piece, with members from Sâver, Tombstones, Dunderbeist, Stonegard, Team Me, Jaqueline.
Recorded at an abandoned pig farm in Hamar, Norway by the band and producer Fredrik Ryberg (Andrew W.K.), Currents is the latest entry in a collection of rare, intermittent, yet wholly compelling releases by the Oslo-based sludge/post-hardcore trio, KITE.
Aiming to reboot the buzz built around last year’s Argonauta Records-approved album, Irradiance, the band is thrilled to be stepping out into the void once more, backed by the clout of a mighty new battalion.
“The team behind Majestic Mountain Records are solid idealists with a true passion for music,” explains vocalist/guitarist, Ronny Flissundet. “We’ve been truly impressed by the fantastic work they’ve done with the likes of Jointhugger and Draken. Having met them personally at numerous Roadburn Festivals down the years, they just feel like the perfect match for us.”
Leading with new single, ‘Turbulence’, an eerie and manic song musically and lyrically, the disorientating video delivers a whole other level of nightmarish intrigue. Directed and shot by Gøran Karlsvik in an eastern Norwegian wood full of dark nature and vivid uncertainty, the song and video capture the gloomy and sonic disposition of a band that prides itself on the intensity of discord. Scarred and scored by throat-tearing vocals and skull crushing melodies.
Currents by KITE will be released 8th October on Majestic Mountain Records.
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 29th, 2020 by JJ Koczan
The unstated message here is that KITE haven’t released an album in more than a decade. True, they put out through Sludgelord Records the EP, The All Penetrating Silence, in 2018, but still. One record in 2009, so really this is a band getting going again. I’ve had the chance to hear some of Irradiance, the forthcoming sophomore LP from the Oslo-based trio, and it’s scathing and atmospheric in kind. Argonauta went about two weeks between band pickups — I almost called the hospitals looking for them; are they okay? — but despite the regularity of their expansion, they continue to bring forth quality in addition to quantity when it comes to output, and on increasingly varied sonic terrain. KITE should fit right in, and by that I mean they kind of don’t.
Irradiance is out March 27 and Argonauta sent the following down the familiar path of the PR wire:
Sludge Heavyweights KITE Sign Worldwide Deal With Argonauta Records
Share Album Details + First, Crushing Single!
Norwegian Sludge trio, KITE, have inked a worldwide deal with Argonauta Records, who will release the band’s sophomore album on March 27th 2020.
Following their 2009- debut album and the critically acclaimed EP, The All Penetrating Silence ( released in 2018 with Sludgelord Records ), KITE’s roots spring deep into the post-hardcore sound of 90’s acts such as Quicksand, Cave In, Deftones or Breach, while giving color to an updated sound with a refreshing hybrid of gloomy, crushing Sludge and melodic atmospheres. While the band members are usually busy with their other projects such as Sâver, Dunderbeist and Team Me, they have been highly productive with the outfit that is KITE.
“We are super-thrilled to be joining the Argonauta familiy, and think that this will be an absolute killer match for us!” the band states. “The label has a bunch of great bands, and seems like a hard working and passionate crew that will give our new album the attention it needs and spread it out to music lovers worldwide. We can’t wait for you all to hear this monster!”
KITE’s second full-length, titled Irradiance, is a dark and heavy, yet crisp and neckbreaking groove monster. Recorded at Tåkeheimen Lydrike in Oslo, Norway, the album consists of 7 heavy as hell tracks, and today KITE are sharing a first one of them with us!
Irradiance is the natural evolution from where we left off with our 2018 EP “The All Penetrating Silence”. The sound has been added a bit more space and air, but still has a sharp crispness and natural feel on top of the dark and heavy grooves and riffs.” KITE explains. “Several of the tracks have been colored with some moog synth magic by Mr. Ole Rokseth ( Sâver/Hymn) and the extra hands laid by producer Morten Øby and mixer Joona Hassinen have really helped these tracks reach their full potential. The first single out – “The Dweller” – represents the album well, with its repetitive over-gained riffs on pounding drums, and the combination of soar melodies and desperate abyssal growls.”
Album Tracklisting: 1. Ghost Signal 2. The Dweller 3. Blood Calls Blood 4. Morlock 5. Irradiance 6. Reveries 7. Mistweaver
Set for a release on March 27th as Vinyl and Digital formats on Argonauta Records, the pre-sale will be available at THIS LOCATION. Watch out for many more news, album tunes as well as a live schedule to follow in the weeks ahead!
KITE is: Ronny Flissundet – Vocals + Guitars Bjarne Ryen Berg – Drums Ole Christian Helstad – Bass + Vocals
