KVAD - Sort Skogsmesse LP

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