#Krigsgrav Fires in the Fall
4 min read
Band: Krigsgrav
Title: Fires in the Fall
Label: Wise Blood Records
Release date: 23 June 2023
Country: USA
Format Reviewed: High-quality digital recording
Krigsgrav is a mix of black metal bludgeoning ferocity with post-black, melodic metal sounds and death/doom influences can be heard as well. Krigsgrav flex their non categorized sound and bring it, making the listener travel to whichever place the music takes them. Singing styles are black metal shrieking, some clean vocal sections and death metal vocals to round things up. Yeah, this band touches into everything that interest them musically. A blending of a lot of metal influences. Some of the sounds you hear are in Krigsgrav’s music may remind you of Agalloch, Wolves in the Throne Room, Drudkh and Falls of Rauros, and what I’m meaning by mentioning these bands is that Krigsgrav has a well-established history of reaching past boundaries of music and challenging the listener to open their ears and minds further.
What I particularly liked about this album was knowing that this band centered their theme of it on Fall turning to Winter, Samhain, haunting expression, and mystic atmospheres. You can really hear all that the band put into this album.
Krigsgrav are from Texas, and began their story in 2004 and here we are in 2023 with this their 7th full-length album. For those wondering about who the band is, well we have David Sikora, on bass and drums, Justin Coleman, guitars and vocals and Cody Daniels on lead guitar.
Let’s jump into to “Fires in the Fall” and check out the 8 tracks together shall we…
“An Everflowing Vessel” kicks things off with that atmosphere building spoken vocal, and before long the guitars and drums pick up the pace propelling you into an underworld of doom and melancholy. All of this with the guitars and drums pounding like a heartbeat. This song travels to the low points and drags you back up to the peaks. As a first track it packs a wallop.
“The Black Oak” comes in with a menacing tremolo. I imagine this to be heard live and I know the hair would be standing up on my arms. The drums in this just beat and counter beat with the guitar. The track picks between some post-black metal tones and straight up musicianship to get you.
“The World We Leave Behind”, the drums almost remind me of first nation pow wow rhythms off the start. Drum beat changes and now able to hear dissonance, and the vocal shrieks become guttural in the same breath. Oh wow, now the lead guitar picks a spot for a rock inspired solo, yeah, every influence of music is nearly represented here.
“In Seas of Perdition” up next with an ominous, thrash speed beginning. Singing style is vicious screams and guttural slams from hell (all in one breath). Track continues in that speedy delivery and for me I lose something in it. It doesn’t resonate as strongly.
“When I am Gone, Let the Wolves Come”,love this title. This track hits into the field of melodic, rich melodies, of being chased, caught, and thrown away, only to be chased again. That’s how this song feels, like you are running and something is behind you.
Now playing, “Shadowlands” the atmospheres being built here are dark and forbidding. Little hope, more dark and little light. Heavy treatment of guitars in this, like doom heavy, and cutting off all airways heavy. Then that melancholy comes to the top of the heaviness and perfectly counter weaves between the singing and drums and guitars. Blistering vocals to tear up and down your spine come in, intense and powerful.
“Journeyman” tremolos and that quintessential black metal vocal to begin this. Some off beat clean voice harmonies are introduced in the background, giving that variation and almost a ghostly sensation. Track finishes in a continuance trance of force, in vocals, guitars and drums.
“Alone with the Setting Sun”, somber, beautiful spare treatment of guitars, soon the power of the track picks up and there is a dueling black metal/death metal vocal (or it sounds to me). This track is exploding in riffs, tremolos, thrash, and frenetic drumming. This track is mostly entrancing guitar and drums but played very well. Melancholy shows up at the end with a quick, echoing finish of a strum of the guitar.
There were a lot of really decent parts to this 8-track album, some bits I really wanted to settle into, then the music would shift to incorporate more of the blending of genres represented here. As I said earlier, doom, death, black, post-black, all seemed to be competing for first place in certain places. In other tracks the blending was done gradually, keeping a balance. Krigsgrav keep their foot print steady in this 7th album, taking genres like I’ve mentioned and bringing them together to create for us, another sound to hear and appreciate.
I give a 7/10 Metal Marie
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