KVAEN - The Great Below LP (White Vinyl)

The album starts with 'Cauldron Of Plagues' which is a very fast and aggressive beast. The guitar leads are in the style of the good old 90s Swedish black metal and the drums are fast as hell. Jacobs vocals sound very aggressive and pissed-off. The atmospheric keyboards create a very unique atmosphere though and this won't let you down listening to the album. Though I don't want to go on track by track, I have to mention the second piece which is also the title track. If you know the guitar work of Jeff Loomis, you can clearly recognize his participation on this song from the very first second. I guess his guitar solos really fit perfectly into the track which is also very fast paced and catchy. From its general structures it reminds me quite a lot of 'Revenge By Fire' from Kvaen's debut. There are some more of these fast tracks in the Dissection style on the album which are really impressive. 'Your Mighty Has Fallen' convinces with nice breaks and tempo changes and 'The Fire Within Him Burns' appears with a nice piano intro / outro and a very casual guitar solo that may be inspired by some classical compositions.

I dare to say that there are no fillers but only killers on this album. When listening to it I always wonder how is it that the album is already through after such a perceived short time (total running time is 39 minutes) and so I have to admit that the music is very diverting. I think that all the compositions are really thoughtfully arranged and that the band did a top album in that musical style in 2022. I would say that this is an essential album for all black /death metal fans out there!