The brand new third album!

It's time for KVAD to bring back BLACK METAL exclusively in the ancient Nordic tradition.

KVAD's last album, 2023's So Old, saw Peregrinus melding mid-'90s Gorgoroth with the fever-dreaming psychedelia of Svest and Weakling: archaic and traditional, but with a uniquely modern touch. With the band's third album, Sort Skogsmesse, there's a more concerted strive toward the ancient...and yet, done so authentically and with such songwriting nous, KVAD manage the unthinkable: creating a "lost classic" in present times. Truly, the aesthetic signposts are there, planted deeper than ever - from Under the Sign of Hell to Dawn of the Dying Sun, Kronet til konge to Dark Waters Stir, blazing in the northern sky with various shades of "Dunkelheit" - but Peregrinus and drummer Lord G conjure a mesmerizing spell that simultaneously invokes all those and none of them. The soundfield is even grittier this time, with thick-yet-distant riffing, bass that's a bit gutted, and Peregrinus' vocals going for a throatier mid-range. Underneath - or perhaps overhead, depending on your proclivities - reside a subtle fog of starlit synth, faint yet effective, adding further levity to these quite-earthen creations. And whereas its predecessor delved into slipstreaming violence more often than not, Sort Skogsmesse shifts tempos more often, a veritable sturm und drung between monged-out mid-tempo and ambient speed. The past is so alive, it's DEAD!


Black LP