Originally written by Chris Chellis.
With little knowledge or experience in black metal, I am not the most ideal candidate for reviewing a Kampfar album. None of my top 10 albums of all time would come from the genre, and only occasionally will I even take notice of the most celebrated black metal releases. What should this mean to you? When I like a black metal album, you know it’s good because of my general weariness about the genre, and Kvass certainly ranks as one of the strongest releases I’ve heard this year.
As is true of all good metal albums, the riff takes precedence over all other elements, and guitarist Thomas does a good job stringing along a few key riffs throughout the entirety of a song to produce a pleasantly chaotic sound in the same clustered way that you might hear on certain passages from a Drudkh album, but with the rock and roll vibe of more recent Darkthrone. With enough dirge and grit to satisfy traditionalists and a firm enough grasp on melody to excel in songwriting, Kampfar walk that necessary fine line that leads to a greater, albeit respected, accessibility. While the vocals are nothing more than standard fare, they are delivered with a sense of palpable intensity. Dolk is no revolutionary, but he asserts himself with control and a clear respect for the flow of the music as a whole. You won’t hear him excessively shouting over Thomas’s riffs for the sake of seeing who has the bigger boner.
Six songs and 48 minutes are about the perfect length for an album dependent on a handful of really excellent riffs. Songs like “Hat Og Avind” and “Ravenheart,” while slightly redundant, are pretty badass and should seduce you into a trance where you’re unknowingly banging your head in a stupor. “Til Tiste Mann” is one of the best songs I’ve heard thus far in ‘06. There aren’t a lot of changes in tempo or mood, but that’s the beauty of an album such as this; you know what you’re getting into, and you know that you can continue to return to Kvass for more melodic blackness.
