Kvelertak (Stranglehold) has gotten tons and tons of hype in Norway the past year. My musical surroundings have toned things down a bit, stating that they're not as awesome as the media makes them out to be. Hence, I didn't bother going to their live shows, get their demo Westcoast Holocaust, or read more praising articles of them. Then, this Christmas, I attended a Blood Command concert, had a chat with their live bassist who told me that Kvelertak would proceed to record their CD in Godcity Studios, owned by Converge mastermind Kurt Ballou. That this genius man had taken interest in a young band from the small harbour city Stavanger in Norway surprised me greatly. There surely had to be something appealing with these guys, no? After a couple of weeks, opinions among my friends started to turn, this was no longer an overrated band. The live shows got even more intense, and well, the new songs sounded rather awesome. Stubborn as I was and still am, I decided not to give them a chance. Until now, overly positive reviews from every corner of the web forced me to buy this from iTunes as soon as it was out. The beautiful cover art by Baroness-frontman John Baizley attracted me even more, and upon hearing the first minute of opener Ulvetid I was sold.

Let me just start the actual review by saying that Kurt Ballou know how to knob some serious ass-kicking sound. The guitars sound fantastic, the drums are explosive as flying fuck, and even if the vocals may lay a little low in the mix, chief screamer Erlend jumps out and devours your soul like no tomorrow on every single song. Considering the main man behind Converge's Axe to Fall took the time to produce this, one understands that Kvelertak will sound slightly like last year's best album. Kvelertak's début can be described as a combination of black metal, classic rock n' roll as well as both dirty punk and punk rock. Imagine Satyricon/Darkthrone meets Turbonegro meets Silver meets Iggy and the Stooges slammed together in a face-shattering, soul-trapping and enslaving album, that will take your breath away and leave you battered and beat in a pool of blood. As Ulvetid clutches your throat and stares madly at you, you feel the heathen powers take control. This is one of those songs with bunches of black metal and rock n' roll that will brutally hook your eyelids and rip them open. Mjød isn't as fast or as shredding, but the horsemen keeps dishing out riff after riff until the anthemic chorus takes and tears you apart. Fossegrim is up next and is more or less a Viking metal song considering the on-the-march like riffs and the lyrical theme. However, as usual, the guys weave in some of their own magic. The punky attitude of the riffs and melodies takes away the grim metal feel pretty quickly without losing the rich essence it creates. Blodtørst continues in the same vein, riff-heavy, varied and deliberate it forges one of the best tracks of the album. I could continue analysing each and every song, but there's no point in doing that. Let's just say that in addition to the songs already mentioned Offernatt, Sultans of Satan, Ordsmedar av Rang, and Utrydd Dei Svake are all top notch rock n' roll and dirty punk influenced black metal that'll punch your pancreas into necrosis.

Kvelertak have, with the help of champions, created one of the best débuts I have heard in years. At least within this spectre of the genre. It's pretty hard to place them anywhere at all, as I've heard nothing like this during my 10 years as a metal-head. Note that I'm not THE black metal enthusiast, but I've still heard my fair share. This might be what people unable to get to the dark side need. This is easy to get into, easy to like, whilst it at the same time kicks insane amounts of ass, is heavy and crushing and contains an extremely crisp and mature sound to top it all off. Hipsters, satan-worshippers, flower-pluckers, punkers, heathens, get of your lazy asses, and go get this bad boy, it'll blow you away. My challenge now is to get on to the next album on my review list. In other words, not easy. Highly recommended!