Right off the bat for those who want to get down to business: this is an excellent album and yes, you need to buy it.
KIR is a duo from Kraków, Poland, consisting of Ferment (Poroniec and all instruments except drums), Harvest (vocals), and session drums by Krzysztof Klingbein. Their debut album, L’appel du vide, (I believe that’s translated as ‘the callow the void’) is released on 6th December on Godz Of War Productions in most formats except, it seems, vinyl.
This is a raw, nihilistic, and ferocious album, dealing with concepts of alienation, existential despair, and disillusionment, set against a background of urban decay and destruction. It is dark and unyielding, pummelling the listening again and again.
It all starts with DestinationVoid with is an ambient piece of urban isolation and desolation. The listener is immersed in the babble of corruption and and isolation, a building soundscape that threatens to overwhelm you.
A jump cut takes us straight into Monument and we are thrown into blast beats, tremolo riffs (wonderful ones at that) and a vocal that screams of pain and despair. The fury of the fast actions contrast well with mid-paced passages but the whole is driven by some massive riffs which highlights the modern aspect of this music. The track breaks down into a tremolo picked section without drums; vocals waft through the guitars and then the blast beats return propelling the song onward ever faster – I’m sure it speeds up at this point! It’s so well produced that you are totally drawn into the music which by now has reached a crazy, whirling, almost psychedelic pitch, perfectly demonstrating the inhuman urban jungle that threatens us all.
Znów, ‘again’ or ‘once again’, begins with an all mighty riff which are joined by busy, hustling drums. The vocals really hold this music all together; a combination of black and death sounding vocals, they do well to represent the horror felt by the narrator of the album. Some great guitar playing on this one – repetitive but evolving at the same time. This track almost has a groove to it, but as you get comfortable with it the whole thing breaks down into a psychotic breakdown, the stuff of nightmares and terror. Wonderful middle section with the vocals (some now clean) drifting in and out merged with piercing guitars and rolling drums. An explosion of blast beats takes us out of this horror and we get a fabulous, swaying riff. Some of this album reminds me of Blut Aus Nord, but that is not to say it is derivative at all. The song finishes with a huge break in the music, consisting of more ambient soundscapes, this one reminding me of a mental asylum – it’s urban, gritty and dark and more than terrifying.
Eter, translation into the English ‘ether’, has some great guitars, which seduce you through their hypnotic power. The song really is an ether nightmare, disorientating, slightly jagged, but all the whole hate-filled. It’s furious in places and these moments are juxtaposed against slower, more doomy sections that again suggest the distorted dream we humans seem to live in, and this song in particular highlights our alienation to the urban environment. The guitars perfectly suggest the disjointed nature of the horror-dream and the song builds, producing a huge riff that takes us to the end – literally to madness, but sonically to a humming, lifting sound, like a nuclear reactor. That’s a great track.
Apotosis, Greek, meaning the ‘falling off of leaves from a tree’, is a beautiful metaphor for the crumbling, corrupt society around us. It starts with military style drums and another of those riffs. It’s slightly doomy but black metal nevertheless. The vocals spar with the guitars and as a result the tempo picks up, driving up forward with a fabulous repetitive riff. This soon breaks down into a frenzied sections of dissonant guitars and blast beats, again replicating the confusion of urban life. There’s a disorientating guitar solo, sounding more like your brain exploding and the whole is resolved into an Enslaved-type rousing chorus. This only lasts a few seconds as the music breaks down into a swirl of guitars, military-style drums, and haunted, yet still aggressive vocals. This band certainly down how to alternative the fast and slower sections. As the track moves to the end section, we get a transcendence of sorts; wonderful riffs and drums that scatter blast beats like falling flowers. The vocals still scream of their despair, but now the music is more triumphant, with rousing, clean vocals, multiple layers of guitars, and a thudding steady drum-beat. It’s all uplifting, yet also unsettling, as if what we have been through has changed us.
Sonically, this album borrows from many sub-genres, but it has a style of it’s own, with rich textures, haunting music, and mostly it’s clever in how it immerses you into this world. Totally excellent album and I thoroughly recommend it.
Coming in at a lean 31 minutes, the album’s track list is:
DestinationVoid – 1:14
Monument – 4:34
Znów”– 7:47
Eter – 7:54
Apoptosis – 9:28
Connect with KIR:
Bandcamp: kirmetal.bandcamp.com
Facebook: facebook.com/kirmetal
Instagram: instagram.com/kirmetal
YouTube: www.youtube.com/@Kir-blackmetal
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.