KV split review - Convivial Hermit
Compared with his demo, the eerie In The Forest Shall Be My Gallows, the material that Veineliis contributes to this split - the part that I had clearly most looked forward to - is relatively tame in relation the past. A noisy and raw affair with few surprises, if any, the German one-man band evokes only a lukewarm funereal effect here at best, tangentially touching upon the slithering, subterranean foulness of its predecessor but never quite pulling the worms to the surface. Like before, the work is marred by synthetic, cheap sounding drum programming - a handicap of the band from the start, though it is not as if the drums are the only problem here, as the guitars seem, in estimation, much too fuzzed out to lend even slightest clarity, and hence drown out the potency of the riffs as they spread around the clickety-clackety drums. All sorts of references to preceding bands can be traced from the early Norwegian artists to more recent German bands, all mixed in a blender, and in fact sounding just like they were, in fact, mixed in a blender, in real... so, in short, despite a handful of relatively good ideas, something of a disappointment.
KÄLTETOD, on the other side, also from Germany, sound very alike to Veineliis with a similar background sea of buzzing guitar, slow riffs, demon vocals and a conscious if but crippled focus on atmosphere. It all sounds very DIY, very rough and uncontained, except that Kaltetod's contribution to the split is considerably more substantive than Veineliis’s, I would say, as demonstrated by a higher range of melodic dynamism, drama and, well, overall creepiness. All four tracks have an understated, dreamy quality to them, very obscure, like capturing a distorted radio signal coming from a world in the last stages of death. I think, though am not wholly certain, that an actual drum set was used in their tracks, as well, adding some bonus points. I can perceive one listening to this recording deep in the night, and the music reflecting back upon it in reciprocal communion...
Like in the case of Spectral Lore, reviewed elsewhere, both bands are presented in a lavish, handmade digipak constructed from thick, environmentally-unsound (one would guess) cardboard - a fitting if slightly excessive presentation in mind of the audio.
As a final note and afterthought, I would add that while I appreciate what both bands are attempting to do, the intent and the execution fail to match up in myriad ways. I think, if anything, the clash between the two corresponds to the source of the problem in what otherwise could have been a far more rewarding outcome.