Posted in Whathaveyou on March 10th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
You might recall the first Tundra and Lightning Festival took place in Bergen, Norway, last Fall. This year’s edition brings Norwegian heavy rock stalwarts Gluecifer to the bill, along with Swedish psychedelicists Goat and a slew of others including Kryptograf and Skraeckoedlan and Håndgemang and more from the always-vibrant Scandinavian heavy underground, and Meryl Streek, a one-man punk outfit from Ireland, because why not.
There are seven more bands to come, so the ultimate shape of Tundra and Lightning 2026 remains to be seen, but you can already see the engagement with the regional underground here, between The Dogs, Emmerhoff and The Melancholy Babies, Slug Boys and so on, also Gluecifer again. And as Norway reaffirms its place as a hotbed for heavy sounds, there’s no shortage of an underground to engage with. They’re still building this one. I like that.
From the internet:
First line up reveal for Tundra and Lightning 2026!
Following a completely sold-out debut in 2025, Bergen Live and USF Verftet are proud to announce the return of Tundra and Lightning Festival. The second edition will take place Friday 2 and Saturday 3 October 2026, once again filling the entire Kulturkvartalet USF with heavy riffs, raw energy and rock from Norway and beyond.
Today we reveal the first 11 artists for this year’s festival. Expect an intense autumn weekend in Bergen as rock fans gather for two days of powerful live music from both established names and exciting rising acts.
First Artists Announced
One of Norway’s most important rock bands, Gluecifer, is finally back with a brilliant new album and explosive live shows.
The masked Swedish cult band GOAT will make their first-ever Bergen appearance at the festival, while The Dogs return after a two-year break — with their first comeback show taking place in the city between the seven mountains.
Local favorites Nix & The Nothings are known as one of Bergen’s most energetic live bands and were among the most requested acts after last year’s festival. From Sweden comes Skraeckoedlan, bringing a suitcase full of fuzz-drenched stoner and doom.
The festival will also host an exclusive 30th anniversary concert with the legendary Emmerhoff & The Melancholy Babies, almost exactly 30 years after their very first official show at the iconic Garage in 1996.
In addition, the lineup features exciting acts from Norway and abroad, including Bergen rockers Kryptograf, stoner powerhouse Håndgemeng, Dublin’s furious one-man punk project Meryl Streek, Swedish rockers Tears of the Fatman with their explosive mix of post-punk, rock ’n’ roll and boogie, and chaotic rock energy from Slug Boys.
Lineup – Tundra and Lightning 2026
Gluecifer GOAT (SE) The Dogs Nix & The Nothings Skraeckoedlan (SE) Emmerhoff & The Melancholy Babies Kryptograf Håndgemeng Meryl Streek (IE) Tears of the Fatman (SE) Slug Boys + Seven more artists will be announced later.
Ticket Information
Festival passes go on presale Thursday 5 March at 10:00. Sign up for presalehere.
Day tickets will be released together with the next artist announcement.
We look forward to welcoming rock fans from near and far to another unforgettable autumn weekend in Bergen.
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 12th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
Bergen, Norway, heavy classic-style prog-leaning rockers Kryptograf will head out in April on a nine-date tour, largely in Germany, as they support their well-received 2025 album, Kryptonomicon (review here), released by Apollon Records. Thus far, the confirmations are all in Germany and the Netherlands, but that’s still a ride and there are two TBAs — between Rostock and Amsterdam and between Amsterdam and Weimar — so there’s perhaps a day in there where Belgium or Luxembourg or somewhere else in Germany or the Netherlands could get a look, depending on the rides and actual geographies involved. But the point is they’re getting out, and good on them for that.
Kryptonomicon was arguably the most straight-ahead album Kryptograf have put forth to-date, and while a given listener might feel any number of ways about that — this is the internet, people can complain about anything — once you hear it, there’s little arguing that a song like “You and I” won’t serve the band well on this tour and hopefully many more to come. That it was the band’s third full-length gave it an air of arrival in terms of sound, as the four-piece of guitarist/vocalists Vegard Strand and Odd Erlend Mikkelsen, bassist Eivind Standal Moen and drummer Amund Nordstrøm (who made his first appearance this time around) continued the path of forward growth from their first two records, clearly having learned a few lessons on the way about the band they want to be. I don’t think they’re finished growing, which is so much the better.
The dates, including TBAs are below, as stumbled upon on social media:
Euronomicon Tour – April 2026!
Back on the road and excited as hell! Tour dates below ⚡
10.04 Rostock DE 11.04 TBA 12.04 Amsterdam NL 13.04 TBA 14.04 Weimar DE 15.04 Hildesheim DE 16.04 Finsterwalde DE 17.04 Braunschweig DE 18.04 Moers DE
Posted in Reviews on March 17th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
It’s not that warm tones, classic-style groove and progressive underpinnings haven’t been a part of Kryptograf‘s approach all along, but their third record, Kryptonomicon, brings new perspective and complexity to their songwriting. At the same time the ultra-manageable, accessible, send-to-your-normie-friends-to-show-them-what-heavy-rock-is-all-about seven-song/33-minute course of the LP is defined by the band continuing to take on more straightforward structures and stripping back some of the prog of their 2020 self-titled debut (discussed here) or 2022’s The Eldorado Spell (review here), and sounding in general way less concerned with genre than, say, anyone who reviews the album is likely to be. This is only to the record’s benefit.
Drummer Amund Nordstrøm makes his debut on Kryptonomicon alongside guitarist/vocalists Vegard Strand and Odd Erlend Mikkelsen and bassist Eivind Standal Moen, so inevitably there’s been some shift in dynamic in the three years since the last outing, but the songs are fluid and that’s crucial to understanding how the LP works. “Beyond the Horizon” is the opener and tells a lot of the story if you’re paying attention — it gets a little lush later on, but rocks plenty at the outset, is a fitting setup and engagingly catchy, etc., well composed and recorded with an organic if not strictly vintage mindset — but so much of what Kryptonomicon accomplishes as a collection comes through in the three-minute centerpiece “You and I.”
With a melody that would make Spidergawd blush, “You and I” stands between the title-track with its post-Graveyard sway and doomly creep, and the thicker motor-chug of “From Below,” with a nighttime cruise of a tempo and proto-metallic atmosphere answering back to “The Blade” earlier. At 3:04, it’s not the shortest cut — that’s the penultimate “Lost at Sea,” at 3:03 — but “You and I” stands out for how absolutely, emphatically taut it is. Understand, “Beyond the Horizon” and certainly “The Blade,” or even “Lost at Sea” which is so obviously conscious of what it’s trying and succeeding to evoke, and even the eight-minute finale “The Gales” don’t lack efficiency for what they’re doing.
The qualifier isn’t to be missed there. At no point are Kryptograf wasting time on Kryptonomicon, and I’m not trying to be cutesy and imply otherwise. But it’s worth keeping in mind even when smacked in the face by a song like “You and I,” which is just so ready to elbow its way into heavy rotation on your mental jukebox — if you’re younger: the playlist in your brain — with a chorus that shimmies, shuffles and soars in the span of about 10 seconds and lands a hook of a quality that not every band gets to write. I’m not talking smack about any of the other songs here — again, part of what makes the album work so well is that they’re not repeating themselves nearly as much as I am in talking about how they’re not repeating themselves — but “You and I” has that easy immersion of the kind of piece that came together in 20 minutes in a rehearsal space and nobody quite knows where it came from but there it is.
No idea if that’s the actual story of it, mind you, but that strut in the second half, the harmonica pushing in with righteous, classic arrogance, and the turn back to the chorus at the finish — it is at the very least a purposefully placed centerpiece. But like “Beyond the Horizon,” it doesn’t necessarily speak for the whole scope of Kryptonomicon, whether its breadth is shown in the acoustics included in “Lost at Sea” — a thrilling bit of anachronism in that it’s a band primarily 1970s-rooted and a move that sounds more derived from circa-’04 Mastodon; kudos all the more to Kryptograf for pushing genre limits in small but effective ways — or in the tumult of “The Gales,” which resolves in more acoustics, organ, and a lightly twisting riff that wouldn’t be out of place on an earlier Uncle Acid record.
But, while one might namedrop a band as a reference for a given part here and there, as they approach maturity, Kryptograf come through as more stridently themselves than they did even a few years ago, and where parts of Kryptonomicon might still draw from the Witchcraft / Graveyard school of retro-heavy, as the songwriting has grown sharper, the stylistic reach has expanded correspondingly. So Kryptonomicon is both the tightest record the band have yet produced — and considering it’s a one-quarter new lineup, that in itself is something worth recognizing — and the farthest ranging.
If that seems counterintuitive, the best advice I can give you from one listener to another is don’t get hung up on it, because the craft and performances throughout Kryptonomicon are strong enough that the band make their way smoothly from the start to the finish on their own terms, without question or anymore bumps along the way than give it character. As fascinating as the direction of Kryptograf‘s growth has been — and it has been; I’m not being sarcastic — the truth of the matter is that if this is your first Kryptograf record, the band make it easy to get on board.
Part of that is in the hooks of “Beyond the Horizon,” “You and I,” “From Below,” and so on, but from the outset it’s more about the controlled presence the band offer as they stand behind their songs. There is never a question that a piece will get where it’s going, and as the varied material is brought together by the vocals, or by a bassline, or a toe-tapper stretch of snare to push a driving riff, the lack of pretense reveals itself as an essential facet of the album’s persona. Kryptograf don’t present themselves in the name of genre expansion, or world takeover via t-shirt sales, or whatever it is that has bands releasing LPs these days. As a collective, they are most of all about the songs they’ve made, and their third album benefits from the clarity of vision behind it and the palpable attention to detail in the recording. If you believe in New Heavy Norway, I don’t see how you can fail to include Kryptograf among its brightest lights.
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 2nd, 2023 by JJ Koczan
This is a good way to spend a couple of nights in Denmark. Hot damn. I missed I think, wait, let me check, yes, all of the batch announcements for Esbjerg Fuzztival 2023 due, I assume, to the whims of the algorithm, but when it finally occurred to me to check in on the fest precisely because I hadn’t seen anything about it, well, there was the full damn lineup waiting for me.
And it’s looking sharp, as well. There isn’t one band on this bill I wouldn’t want to see, from Nebula and Greenleaf to Slowjoint and Vestjysk Ørken. Not a clunker in the bunch. And hell, I’ve never seen Clouds Taste Satanic and they’re from New York, so catching them in Denmark would be a hell of a way to see them for a first time. And Ecstatic Vision, High Desert Queen, Edena Gardens, Kryptograf, getting to check Causa Sui off my all-time must-see list? Yeah. Sounds fucking amazing, actually. Throw in Kanaan, Valley of the Sun and oh, say, Deathchant, and you’ve got yourself a deal. I’m not trying to be glib when I say this, but it looks like a lovely time.
I pieced the below together out of the aforementioned posts I missed, so if it reads clunky or they come off as excessively proud, perhaps, that’s why. Here you go:
Complete lineup for Fuzztival ’23!
Who are you most excited to see this year!?
Get your tickets in now!
Fuzztival are PROUD to announce our Friday night headliner NEBULA, bringing the desert to Denmark! ECSTATIC VISION, VALLEY of THE SUN and KRYPTOGRAF will be joining! And as always the Fuzztival house band VESTJYSK ØRKEN will be opening the festival for the 6th consecutive time!
We are PROUD to present another round of bands! Adding KANAAN as well as EDENA GARDENS (feat. members of Causa Sui & Papir) and CLOUDS TASTE SATANIC to Fuzztival 23!
We are proud to be adding the OG desert Rockers FATSO JETSON alongside DEATHCHANT and HIGH DESERT QUEEN! The riffs will be plenty and scorching hot! SLOWJOINT will be returning to Fuzztival with a special surprise set!
The almighty riff machine GREENLEAF will be headlining Saturday at Fuzztival ’23! Closing the fest with a shake and a bang so bring your dancing shoes!
Last but not least we are PROUD to welcome back the KINGS of Heavy Psych CAUSA SUI to Fuzztival ’23!
This wraps up the bands announced for this year! Final call to save some dough for more Fuzz Ales!
Released through Apollon Records amid the anxious hopelessness of June 2020, Kryptograf‘s self-titled debut was and is a deceptively complex outing. It runs a straightforward-enough eight songs and 38 minutes, and on its surface it’s something one would hear starting out with “The Veil” and probably classify the Norwegian four-piece as vintage-minded heavy rock and consider the matter settled. “The Veil” is among the clearest expressions of its own intentions in its new-generation-coming-up interpretations of earliest Witchcraft and Graveyard, but even in that song’s bridge riff, there are shades of doom, and later on, the easy plot essentially gets thrown out the window in favor of a tambourine-laced frenzy solo shove, loosely Graveyard-informed, but more raucous in Eirik Arntsen‘s (also vocals) cymbal work and more definitively fuzzed in the guitars of Vegard Strans and Odd Erlend Mikkelsen (both also vocals). Oh, and by the way, it’s also only about three minutes long.
And yeah, on paper that’s a tempo change, but like in (conceptual more than sonic, but a bit of that too, naturally) Sabbathian tradition, the tempo change does more for the song in the actual listening experience, informing subtly that one song isn’t necessarily going to be one thing, and as Eivind Standal Moen‘s bassline introduces “Omen,” the outward procession creeps forward with now-via-then flourish, reminding distinctly of Copenhagen’s Demon Head on the six-minute track as they proto-doom roll and nod their way toward the nine-minute “Seven.” There are a couple genuine twists as the Bergen-based unit move through their first record, and “Seven” is well placed as one of them. The only way it might work more to shift the listener’s expectation is if they’d put it as the opener instead of “The Veil,” but it gets the job done in contrasting that and “Omen” just fine, and unfurls with flourish born of a yet-unrevealed heavy psychedelic underpinning.
There are flashes of prog as well — largely unavoidable anytime you’re breaking out a mellotron — but the keys and guitars mesh together with a fluidity that hints toward the jam to come, and the band depart earth’s atmosphere with little fanfare and much hypnotic guitar work, spanning channels here and there while the drums and bass join the freakout, gradually parachuting back into the more structured riffing. The effect the departure has is to make the rest of the song feel more open, and as it pushes to the finish, the residual resonance carries over into the ’70s-future-synth that begins “Crimson Horizon,” a still-far-out atmosphere soon crashing into an earthy riff and one of Kryptograf‘s most memorable progressions, a purposeful regrounding on the part of the band that pins down the multifaceted nature of their craft. They can be both these things on their debut, and more besides, since the steady nod and lush vocal melody of “Crimson Horizon” — like a mellower take on modern stoner riffing — leads into the more garage-doom, post-Uncle Acid harmonized hook of “Sleeper,” which is a standout for the album as a whole with its chorus and vague air of danger.
The depth of vocal arrangements is something Kryptograf continued to explore earlier this year on their second album, The Eldorado Spell (review here), but it remains one of an apparent multitude of stylistic assets at their disposal, and as impressive as the playout of “Sleeper” is, it’s not by any means a full summary of the band’s strengths then or now. One could probably fill another post entirely with flowery (floury, if you’re thinking of it as baking bread, which I’m not; carbs) descriptions of the progression of material across side B of this self-titled, with “Crimson Horizon” acting as an album-leadoff-worthy introduction before its upbeat swing or the clarion stretch of standalone guitar that rises out of the crash circa four minutes in, reaffirming the groove they’ll ride to the song’s finish and the start of “Sleeper,” etc., but even in that regard, distinguishing side B from A, the last three tracks of the Kryptograf seem to have a mission of their own. “Ocean” begins with contemplative acoustic strum, Zeppelin-ish, but only because they made it shimmer, and a watery layer of vocals accompanying, taking cues more from the prog rock that took hold after Floyd than from Floyd themselves while lasting only 2:40, the shortest of the song-songs on the record.
In terms of value to the overarching listening experience of the album, “Ocean” and its placement in the tracklisting shouldn’t be discounted just because “Seven” is more than three times as long. The effect of giving the audience a chance to breathe, appreciate what’s just taken place across “Crimson Horizon” and “Sleeper,” while getting set up for “New Colossus” still to come, is crucial. Further, it claims an entire unplugged sonic spectrum as fair game for Kryptograf‘s future work — a notion the band wouldn’t wait long to pay off on opener “Asphodel” from The Eldorado Spell — and offers another avenue through which their longer term growth may or may not manifest. That doesn’t mean they have to do an entire unplugged release at any point however long their tenure may go, but if they wanted to, you wouldn’t be able to call it unprecedented.
But “Ocean” further works alongside the instrumental outro “∞ (Infinite)” to surround “New Colossus” and give that penultimate inclusion a presentation that feels duly earned by its marching early fuzz riff, spacious vocal melody — reminds me of Acid King, if faster — and cymbal-crashing proto-burl groove later as the band touches a bit on a Sleepy nod delivering the title-line, builds and crescendos in a tidy sub-five-minute course. The hums and psychedelic ambience of “∞ (Infinite)” afterward feel like and likely are an afterthought — and actually, if one discounts “∞ (Infinite),” it makes “Crimson Horizon” the centerpiece, which kind of makes sense in terms of how the record plays out front-to-back — but the subdued ending further adds to the scope of Kryptograf‘s Kryptograf, and presages future exploration that, two years later, is already underway.
Throughout this year and probably next and the one after and for however long I keep this site going, I’ve been going back and digging into albums that, because I apparently spent the whole year in a bunker, I didn’t get to review at the time. Kryptograf‘s self-titled was something I kept feeling like I needed to be writing about right up until the second LP was announced. I’ll say sincerely that having now dug into it thusly, I feel like a weight has been lifted. Fortunately I know a god record to put on for that kind of party.
As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.
—
Alarm went off at four, kid up at five. I woke up without any real sense of how today was going to go, which is far from a personal preference. To a certain extent, every day brings some invariable degree of chaos, today just more. Family stuff. A lot of it. This afternoon. I’m told it involves bowling.
I could use a shower that lasts as long as I’m thinking watching The Pecan bumper-bowl through however many frames will go, but it’s been a couple days and I’ll settle for whatever I can get. Summer of Pivot. I have pivoted to stink.
Ups and downs the week, usually within like 25 seconds of each other. I’ve informed The Pecan that I’m leaving next week for a few days — that’s Psycho Las Vegas, which I’ll be covering in my addled, harried fashion — and that he’ll be on his own taking care of mommy. He pretty much expresses any emotion, positive or negative, through some manner of violence right now, whether it’s pinching, punching, kicking, headbutting, biting, pushing, etc., so how he actually feels about me going is anyone’s best guess, but I’d say probably he’s less than pleased. Coming home from Freak Valley in June was a fucking disaster, on every level emotional and practical. I’m hoping this goes smoother but not holding my breath.
Precisely the same thing might be said of living into 2023 and beyond.
Speaking of the things we do to survive, I guess going without the antidepressants is going okay? Not great? Not terrible? It’s kind of just life, which is how I think it should feel about a week out from stopping the daily pills. I talked about this last week if you’ve no idea where it’s coming from. I haven’t been crying — except at that one episode of Bluey where Chili’s sister is infertile; that one sure hit home — which last time I tried to go off meds I definitely spent a good portion of the time doing, so that feels like a win. I haven’t really stopped moving this week either though, so maybe that’s part of it.
I don’t know. I’ll keep plugging along and see where I end up. This week was a week. Today has for the last nine hours been and will continue to be a day. The weekend will be a weekend. None of it will be easy, and hopefully none of it will be harder than it should be.
Are these the best days of my life?
I don’t know. Sometimes I feel so fortunate to be surrounded by so much love and other times I want nothing so much as to veer into oncoming traffic. It’s cool though, I hear there are pills for that. Ha.
Gimme show next week. Psycho Las Vegas coverage next week. Before I go, premieres for Howling Wolves, Faith in Jane, Electric Hydra and a full stream and review (I call them ‘fullies’ but only to myself because no one else in my day-to-day gives even the remotest of shits) for the All Souls/Fatso Jetson live split. If you want a preview of that, All Souls already snuck their portion up on Bandcamp. I don’t even care, I’m just happy to have the excuse to write about the bands.
That last will be up Thursday, which is also the start of Psycho, so there you go. I fly back the Monday after. Early, I think, but not as early as I’ll fly back from Høstsabbat in Oslo this October, which I’m already very, very much looking forward to attending as well. That one’s a to-the-airport-right-after-the-show kind of situation. Can always sleep at the gate if need be, and I suspect it will.
But I’m getting off track. Shower now, bowling after? Fun fact about me: I’m the worst bowler in the world. Even with bumpers. I’d be amazed if The Pecan, at four and a half, didn’t whoop my ass in bowling. Good. He could use a win and if I’m gonna lose anyway, it might as well be to him.
Or maybe I just won’t bowl and will spend my time on little-dude-management, which as I may or may not have effectively conveyed in the last four-plus years, is a full-time gig.
Thanks for reading. Great and safe weekend, whatever you might be up to. Hydrate, watch your head, shower when you can. Back on Monday.
Before I turn you over to the playlist — and I’m gonna try to keep this short either way — I want to single out and say thank you to Dean Rispler. He’s the engineer for this show, and with my dumbass voice tracks, it ran long. Instead of cutting out a song or whatever, Dean went ahead and trimmed intros and outros, making it a tighter ‘broadcast,’ such as it is, and enhancing the thing rather than detracting from it. Thank you, Dean. I know the effort that takes, the time that can take, and it is very much appreciated, by me if by no one else.
Some new stuff, some old stuff. I had Ufomammut on the brain and then I had stuff-I-like on the brain, and, well, that’s how you end up with me playing Colour Haze. I give myself points though for managing to leave Author & Punisher out of an episode though. I think he was in the last three. And if you haven’t heard the Charley No Face record, there’s a reason it starts the show.
If you listen, or you see these words, thanks.
The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at: http://gimmemetal.com.
Full playlist:
The Obelisk Show – 03.04.22
Charley No Face
Death Mask
Eleven Thousand Volts
Wo Fat
The Witching Chamber
The Singularity
Fuzz Sagrado
Lunik IX
A New Dimension
Wovenhand
Omaha
Silver Sash
VT
Kryptograf
The Spiral
The Eldorado Spell
Uncle Woe
Nine Kinds of Time
Pennyfold Haberdashery & Abattoir Deluxe
Samavayo
Afghan Sky
Payan
JIRM
Repent in Blood
The Tunnel, the Well, Holy Bedlam
Green Hog Band
Dragon
Dragon
VT
Ufomammut
Nero
Idolum
Conan
Battle in the Swamp
Monnos
YOB
Burning the Altar
The Great Cessation
Colour Haze
Grace
She Said
VT
Acid King
Coming Down From Outer Space
Live at Roadburn 2011
Fuzz Meadows
Benji
Orange Sunshine
The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is March 18 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.
Bergen, Norway, classic heavy/progressive rockers Kryptograf release their second full-length, The Eldorado Spell, through Apollon Records on Feb. 25. The follow-up to the four-piece’s well-received late-2020 self-titled debut is preceded by standalone singles made for “The Well” and “Cosmic Suicide,” both of which are included here as well as part of an overhead view of a garden of vintage delights. The sometimes-progressive-leaning outfit aren’t through opening track “Asphodel” before they’ve cut from their post-Witchcraft riffing into an acoustic led frolic nodding toward later-OzzyBlack Sabbath, but it’s ultimately the retro influence that wins out in terms of defining their sound — that is to say, Kryptograf build on the aesthetic pioneered by bands like Graveyard and the aforementioned Witchcraft, more than they try to pretend the last half-century of heavy rock never happened.
Either way you go, The Eldorado Spell is duly captivating for its 45-minute run, and further establishes Kryptograf among Northern Europe’s next-generation retro-ist practitioners in bands like Demon Head, Dunbarrow, Stuck in Motion and so on. While keeping an abidingly organic feel, however, Kryptograf don’t lean on aesthetic to take the place of songwriting. The chugging nod groove of “Cosmic Suicide” is familiar enough sounding as an execution of genre, but “Lucifer’s Hand” dips into more severe atmospherics in its second half, and “Creeping Willow” effectively pays off its early tension in a searing guitar solo later on; traditionalist, to be sure, but engaging that tradition toward its own ends as each piece of The Eldorado Spell makes its presence known while serving the grander purpose of the album as an entirety. Worth noting that at 45 minutes, The Eldorado Spell is actually on the longer end of a release of its style, but the proggier sides of “Creeping Willow” and the title-track — the fluidity with which the latter evolves into a kind of moody pastoralism of interwoven layers of guitar and spoken vocals, for example — account for that differential, and even in the interludes “Across the Creek” and the penultimate, mellotron-inclusive “Wormwood,” the time is not at all misspent.
If anything, the burgeoning patience in Kryptograf‘s sound speaks well of the direction Kryptograf are headed, but they still have the energy in their approach to pull influence from “Chylde of Fire” for the closer “The Well” at the end of side B’s immersive run through cuts like “The Spiral” and the bluesy “When the Witches,” with the latter being about as spacious as the band gets in its extended solo jam sounding improvised in its foundation but moving smoothly back to the chorus just the same. Kryptograf are growing, and that’s audible throughout The Eldorado Spell both in the standout pieces like “Cosmic Suicide” and “Creeping Willow” as well as in how the last three tracks flow one into the next. That growth — something to appreciate in itself, mind you — doesn’t take away from the depth of their craft here, however, and as they continue to develop aspects like the multi-vocalist arrangements and to find their niche between proto-metal, classic doom and progressive rock, the identity they’ve begun to shape will likewise find its form. What matters today is that The Eldorado Spell rocks, but it’s the manner in which it does so that will keep listeners returning to the full-LP experience on offer.
I dug the first record but didn’t get to properly cover it (look for it as a Friday Full-Length in a couple years, I guess), so it’s with marked pleasure that I can host the stream of The Eldorado Spell in its entirety ahead of the release. You’ll find it streaming on the player below, followed by a few preliminaries courtesy of the PR wire.
As always, I hope you enjoy:
Kryptograf is back with their second album The Eldorado Spell, to be released in February 25th on Apollon Records.
Inspired by the heavy sound of the late 60s and 70s, the four old souls in Kryptograf from Bergen, Norway will hex you with their collective vocals, destructive riffs and inventive songwriting.
Kryptograf is an eclectic but fiercely focused addition to the doomy Bergen underground.
Tracklist 1. Asphodel 2. Cosmic Suicide 3. Lucifer’s Hand 4. Creeping Willow 5. Across The Creek 6. The Eldorado Spell 7. The Spiral 8. When The Witches 9. Wormwood 10. The Well
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 26th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Europe’s Spring festival season would seem to be on the rebound this year, and a delayed Sonic Whip fest in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, is set for May 6 and 7 as a part of that process. With poster art by the esteemed Maarten Donders, the festival has announced that Elder, Elephant Tree, Kal-El, Kryptograf, Hey Colossus and Supersonic Blues are going to play, which is some pretty killer adds alongside the already confirmed likes of Motorpsycho, Earthless, Slomosa, and so on.
Among the things to dig about the bill’s international reach is the presence of more Norwegian acts than one might’ve seen even just a couple years ago. Motorpsycho‘s place among headliners is, of course, well earned, but you can see too in Kryptograf and Slomosa an up and coming generation of rockers, and in Kal-El the kind of act they might want to grow up to be. It’s cool to see Norway’s underground become immersed in the broader sphere of European heavy. They’ll do well here alongside other groups from the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, the US, UK and so on.
There are apparently more announcements to come. Fine, but if Sonic Whip was like, “Nah this is it,” it’d still be good fest.
Here’s the info:
NEW ADDITIONS SONIC WHIP 2022
We are pretty stoked to announce that Elder, Elephant Tree, Hey Colossus, Kal-El, Kryptograf and Supersonic Blues will be part of Sonic Whip 2022 – Official!
Already confirmed for 6 & 7 May are Motorpsycho, Earthless, Stöner, Rotor, SACRI MONTI, MaidaVale, Mythic Sunship, a/lpaca, POLYMOON, Slomosa and KALEIDOBOLT. This is going to be wild! And that is not all, there is still more to follow…
Saturday daytickets are sold out, only Friday and a few weekend tickets remaining. Tickets are available here:https://bit.ly/SonicWhip-2022
The beautiful artwork created by the talented Maarten Donders.
Friday 6 May 2022 Elder, Sacri Monti, Mythic Sunship, Kal-El, Kryptograf, Kaleidobolt, Supersonic Blues and more to be confirmed.
Saturday 7 May 2022 Motorpsycho, Earthless, Stöner, Elephant Tree, Rotor, Hey Colossus, Maidavale, Slomosa, Polymoon, A/lpaca and more to be confirmed.
