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.

Kite, “Turbulence” official video

KITE on Facebook

KITE on Instagram

KITE on Bandcamp

Majestic Mountain Records webstore

Majestic Mountain Records on Facebook

Majestic Mountain Records on Instagram

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.

Sons of Alpha Centauri on Facebook

Exile on Mainstream Records website

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Doctors of Space, Studio Session July 2021

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.

Doctors of Space on Bandcamp

Space Rock Productions website

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River Flows Reverse, When River Flows Reverse

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.

Psychedelic Source Records on Facebook

Psychedelic Source Records on Bandcamp

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Kite, Currents

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.

KITE on Facebook

Majestic Mountain Records webstore

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Starless, Hope is Leaving You

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.

Starless on Facebook

Starless on Bandcamp

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Wolves in the Throne Room, Primordial Arcana

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.

Wolves in the Throne Room on Facebook

Relapse Records website

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Oak, Fin

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.

Oak on Facebook

Oak on Bandcamp

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Deep Tomb, Deep Tomb

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.

Deep Tomb on Facebook

King of the Monsters Records webstore

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Grieving, Songs for the Weary

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.

Grieving on Facebook

Interstellar Smoke Records webstore

Godz ov War Productions webstore

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Djinn, Meandering Soul

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.

Djiin on Facebook

Klonosphere Records website

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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 Currents via 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

Pre-order HERE: https://majesticmountainrecords.bigcartel.com/

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.

Tracklisting:
1. Idle Lights 04:31
2. Turbulence 04:27
3. Murdress 04:25
4. Ravines 04:45
5. Currents 05:12
6. Infernal Trails 08:27
7. Ferret 05:33
8. Heroin 06:50
9. Unveering Static 04:37

KITE:
Ronny Flissundet – Vocals, Guitars
Bjarne Ryen Berg – Drums
Ole Christian Helstad – Bass, Vocals

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http://www.kitenorway.bandcamp.com
http://majesticmountainrecords.bigcartel.com
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http://instagram.com/majesticmountainrecords

Kite, “Turbulence” official video