Prica se o Kolosu.
evo sta ja mislim
Two years ago Keep Of Kalessin ripped everyone’s head off with “Armada” ; before it they were quite a familiar and respected band in the metal world but “Armada” sharpened and perfected every single aspect of their epic brand of Black Metal. Logically, immense success and slab of great reviews followed, thus making the “Kolossus” one of the most anticipated releases of the year 2008. Was “Armada” just a fluke, can they repeat it, will they sink or swim...? Nuclear Blast signed the band, sent them on tour with their starwaltz Dimmu Borgir and Behemoth (Black Metal boy bands, as our editor Marko jokingly said ) and prepared great advertising campaign for the album. And after all the waiting, rabidly watching studio reports on youtube.com, anticipating... “Kolossus” is finally in front of us. The album opens with acoustic intro “Origin” (the same way as “Armada”, if you remember...) and immediately sets us in the right mood. After the first listening of “Kolossus” one thing is certain – Keep Of Kalessin still kept the basic substances and goals of their work – epic and somewhat long songs. The main difference between the “Armada” and “Kolossus” is that the latter is a bit more melodic, and the songs now are more based on building the atmosphere (not that “Armada” wasn’t atmospheric, no way!). That fact gains “Kolossus” more variety than “Armada” had. Maybe this will catch you off guard a little bit, after all we were all crushed by “Armada”’s titanic warlike attack. But you will simply need couple of listens just to get used to this slightly different face of Keep Of Kalessin and everythink will be crystal clear – this band confirmed again that they are capable of biggest achievements. “Kolossus” is flooded with ideas of highest caliber and it engages you through its compositional maturity and authentic spiritual substantiality, simply not allowing intellectual passivity but rather it swallows you into its world full of unexplainable and unexpected sights. Every song here is a mini epic in itself, they are not based on basic “verse-chorus” structures but instead Keep Of Kalessin are rather taking quite a cinematic approach in making of their epos. Melodies are intertwined with brutality and epicness resulting in one piece which have its message and conclusions. All songs are indeed very long (except for the last song on the album entitled “Ascendant” which has a little bit usual approach, but nevertheless it is great, and that song is chosen for the first video) but exceptional compositional work and playing skills of band save them from sinking. Lions share of music complexity lies on drummer Vyl, who is reaching the highest realms of metal drummers closer and closer with each and every album. I particularly enjoy his blastbeats, he doesn’t seem to be simply grindng away the drums ; when he intervows them with Obsidian’s melodies they seem very conquering and marching. Some people complain about Obsidian’s riff work and they call it repetitive, but as I see it – the man found his unique riffing way, nothing wrong about it. Thebon’s vokals are going from deep growls to highest screams and everything in between, I have seen that people are comparing him to Ihsahn’s and Lemmy’s bastard child and I can tell that it is pretty funny but accurate description. Wizziac’s bass work is rarely heard, unfortunately, but if you really pay attention (with help of some good headphones maybe...) you will notice that his lines are not simply following the guitar, he is also adding extra spice on music. The production work on “Kolossus” is a little bit weird – the guitars and drums are a little bit thin, and that is the only thing that I can see as a minus. Everything else is done perfectly, Keep Of Kalessin is still on the rise, they gave us yet another colossal creation and the end of their superior creations is not yet in sight. This is recomendable to each and every metal fan IMHO, but mostly to those who adore bands like Emperor, Dimmu Borgir and Satyricon. With a little luck I think that Keep Of Kalessin can reach the same status as those gods in the future. Killer work!
