By: Austin Scheerer
I had a pretty solid Valentine’s Day this year: I went to visit a friend out in Cornwall and we spent the evening hanging out watching the first two Shrek films. Far more important was the fact that Norwegian heavy rockers Kvelertak released their fourth album, Splid (Norwegian for Discord). Despite touring with some heavy metal titans like Metallica, the six piece has had less success than they should outside of Norway. Even their crown prince, Haakon Magnus, is a fan. The band is known for their high energy performances and peculiar but absolutely rock-solid genre of choice, something they describe as “Black ‘n’ Roll.” That is, a blend of Black Metal and Rock ‘n’ Roll. It’s a strange combination and difficult to describe without hearing it, but it’s fantastic. Now, onto the music:
Splid is an excellent addition to the band’s catalogue. It’s the first album to feature new vocalist Ivar Nikolaisen who replaced original vocalist Erlend Hjelvik in 2018. It has a total of 11 songs and runs to 58:11 which I personally find slightly long, but still manageable. Save for two songs, “Crack of Doom” (featuring heavy metal band Mastodon’s Troy Sanders as a guest vocalist) and “Discord”, all of the songs on Splid are in the band’s native Norwegian and as someone who has no experience with the language interpreting the lyrics is a challenge, but I’ll touch on that later. The album's sound is best summarised as a deadly, balls-to-the-wall, punk and heavy metal party. There are no soft acoustic ballads or love songs (although there is some clean and acoustic guitar on one or two intros) and Nikolaisen screams himself hoarse (in a healthy way obviously, contrary to popular belief with metal vocalists). It’s a heavy and irreverent good time. The lead singles were “Bråtebrann” (Norwegian for “Lumber Fire,” all kinds of jokes about wood inbound), “Crack of Doom,” and “Fanden ta dette hull!”, an expletive about something and holes. Google translate was not terribly helpful, but you can probably make accurate assumptions.
Because the majority of the lyrics on Splid are in Norwegian and I cannot speak or understand it, I’ll focus on the two English songs on the record. “Crack of Doom'' is a maddeningly fun anthem for Ragnarök, the Nordic end of the world. It just makes you want to engage in varying degrees of property damage (please don’t though). The chorus, sung by Mastodon’s Troy Sanders, is pretty clear in its intentions: Sabotage! Dehumanize! / Gonna crucify/ Gonna vandalize! /D-E-S-T-R-O-Y/ I'm just a mayfly baby/ Yeah, we're all gonna die. My favorite line, however, has to be: Born with a lack of PMA/ I got judgement day/ In my DNA. In this context, PMA probably refers to Positive Mental Attitude, but it’s the Judgement day DNA bit that gets me. Simple, clever and badass. Similarly, Discord is ripping and aggressively fun in its message of impending doom: Paved our way through dark times and decay/ But the cards we've been dealt tied our hands, there's no way to escape as well as Look! See all the dark clouds gather/ The four winds are loose and the cities we built will dissolve! It’s a combination of dark lyrics accompanying a (relatively) positive sound which I personally love.
However, Splid is not a perfect album. It’s very close, but not quite. Most of the best songs are in the first half, leaving the second to feel like it’s dragging a little. Part of this, I think, stems from the 58-minute run time. If they cut it down to around 45 minutes it would be one of their best albums in my opinion. But that’s really as far as my criticisms go - I can’t think of anything else. The guitars are on point, the bass and drums sound huge and the production quality is high without feeling overproduced.
There are definitely a few songs on this album that are already fan favourites and soon to be classics for the band. And speaking of, Kvelertak are about to begin their 35 date European tour for the release of the album with support from Planet of Zeus, Blood Command, and Astro Saur. Four shows are already sold out, three have low tickets and one show has a venue upgrade due to popular demand. I hope to catch them when they arrive in London in March to see just how much fun this album is live.
Edit: Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the band had to prematurely cut their tour short. However, they did stream a brand new live concert in the early days of the quarantine (The Live From Your Living Room Tour, with T-shirts). I managed to get a ticket and it was WAY better than I could have predicted. They had the whole set up in a warehouse with smoke, lights, lasers, pyrotechnics and all the band members while still practicing social distancing the entire time. That gig alone deserves a review, but if that’s how they sound and play through a screen, seeing them live will be a seriously good time.
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