Written by: Nameless_N00b_89
The nameless souls of the black metal band KrvL (pronounced “Kravaal”) are said to roam Belgium’s Kravaal forest. As a nameless one, too, I felt a peripheral connection to the group, which formed in 2020 at the height of the pandemic. With its 2022 self-released debut Kravaal, KrvL presented its sonic vision to the world. A decent dose of black metal with post and doom leanings, Kravaal caught the attention of start-up Italian label These Hands Melt, who signed the mysterious Belgians in 2024. Steeled now to release its sophomore effort Donkere Paden, KrvL seeks to enter the light from, as the blurb reads, “the darkness they find themselves in.”
KrvL’s black metal takes root mostly in the second-wave tradition, with post-metal and doom both making appearances. Replicating the debut’s blueprint, Donkere Paden leans heaviest on riffs of the tremolodic kind. Layering single-string over double-string tremolos to create melodicism in the faster passages, KrvL harkens back to Transilvanian Hunger-era Darkthrone with less of the catchiness and better production. The slower, doom-like passages have a faster-than-funeral-paced Mizmor quality that serves the album’s atmosphere well, with even the dirge-ier riffs being tremolo-picked. The drums employ straight and d-beat patterns to keep the speedier sections moving, while holding back to give the slower-paced passages more room to breathe, where the bass work often breaks through. The vocals, dispossessed of the variety displayed on the debut, rule the bulk of Donkere Paden with a genre-appropriate scream-shout delivery.
A tale of two tempos, Donkere Paden achieves more with subtlety than aggression. The front half’s speedier movements are dominated in the mix by the drums and vocals, leaving little room for the guitars and bass (“De Koning Van Stilte,” “Cadans Der Drofheid”). Conversely, those same tracks’ doomier passages succeed with a more sonically balanced approach, guitars resonating confidently with enough space to hear the slithering bass lines underneath. Guest appearances serve as a counterpoint to the one-dimensional vocal approach, be it the raspy shouts and spoken words of Oerhek’s H (“Duvielsputten”) or Shazulla’s (of Wolvennest) shouted words on the Filosofem-ic “Zielenrust.” The album’s highlights (“De Verloren Herder” and “Het Onbegrip”) both benefit from speedy tremolos that attain even footing with the drums and vocals. The former song’s midpoint builds back from a single-plucked guitar line to shimmering tremolos that usher the melancholic melody to its end. In contrast, the latter song’s slower second half marches the album to a majestic conclusion with its plodding descent of power chords supporting a single-string melody.
At just over 40 minutes, Donkere Paden’s runtime feels longer due to its formulaic repetition. Instead of using the foundation of Kravaal as a springboard for further artistic exploration, KrvL chose a narrower, more AC/DC-like scope and simply recreated it. Less focused on the doomier, atmospheric song structures that highlight the band’s strengths, Donkere Paden cedes more time to speed, which is where KrvL loses itself. Employing less than a handful of notes to drive melodic variation in both the fast and slow tremolo riffs (“De Koning Van Stilte,” “Avondrood”), this approach further intensifies the album’s feel of similitude. Even the plucked guitar passages that serve as intro (“De Koning Van Stilte”) or interlude (“Cadans Der Drofheid,” “Het Onbegrip”) carry a sense of recycled interchangeability. The overall effect dulls the listener’s senses and significantly impacts memorability.
From production to performance, KrvL’s Donkere Paden is a good album, just not a memorable one. Taken in bite-sized pieces, the constituent parts of the record are all pleasantly digestible, especially when they fire on all cylinders (“De Verloren Herder,” “Het Onbegrip”). However, this success is not par for Donkere Paden’s course, which lacks the structural ideas necessary to support the release as a whole. KrvL does more of its best work on the debut than on this sophomore effort. I enjoyed walking the unpaved paths of KrvL’s Donkere Paden and will be keeping an eye on what these nameless minstrels do next, hoping for something I’ll carry with me for longer.
Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: These Hands Melt
Websites: krvl.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/KrvL1745
Releases Worldwide: October 11th, 2024
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