Location: Austria
Genre: Black metal, black and roll
Full length: A Revelation of Intoxication
Format: Digital, CD, vinyl (see Bandcamp link for more information)
Label: Immortal Frost Productions
Release date: March 21, 2025
"Psycho Circus" was a track from "A Revelation of Intoxication" that piqued my interest in where Antikvlt's are taking their music. This band feels black metal should remain as irreverent and full of fury as it was in the early 1990s, independent of political correctness, wokeness or cancel culture. Their songs are made to represent inner turmoil and cognitive dissonance verging on paranoid schizophrenia.
After releasing a few albums in the 90s, bands like Darkthrone and Satyricon eventually felt they’d made their point when it came to playing potent, grandiose black metal. But rather than mellowing or softening, they turned to simpler black & roll, replacing elegance with a raw, discordant sound, recording and mixing everything at full volume. This style had as much in common with Motörhead and Tank as with Mayhem and Ancient. Heading in a similar direction, Antikvlt intends to purposely jangle your nerves as a form of free expression.
"What Love Can't Buy" establishes Antikvlt as a band that juxtaposes black & roll riffs with dissonant tremolo picking evocative of second-wave black metal. Despite the vertigo caused by alternating and contrasting these styles, the songs are cohesive as if those aspects belong together. The immense, distorted bass rumbling, accurate snare hits, and constant double-kick drums give the guitars a solid rock and proto-thrash foundation, implying that Cronos and Abaddon of Venom were sources of inspiration.
The resulting sound is enormous and piercing, setting its own mood without the need of additional keys or electronic instruments, and something about it elicits an uneasy sense that persists throughout the entire album. The feeling is equivalent to someone who longs to escape the banal, mundane aspects of human existence for a mental and spiritual place where they are free to create and be extreme, but is restrained by illusions of contentment imposed by others.
The massive, acute quality of the music and the vocal variations represent this struggle, as the speaker laments his separation from himself and rages against his confinement with fiery vocals, melancholy vocals, and chants. "No Rest for the Sacred," "Crossed Lines," "Serenade of Perversion," and "In Dependency" evoke this tension at a deeper, more visceral level than one would expect from a black & roll album. Not in a confrontational manner, but in a way that sparks a fire inside you that you may not have known existed. –Dave Wolff
After releasing a few albums in the 90s, bands like Darkthrone and Satyricon eventually felt they’d made their point when it came to playing potent, grandiose black metal. But rather than mellowing or softening, they turned to simpler black & roll, replacing elegance with a raw, discordant sound, recording and mixing everything at full volume. This style had as much in common with Motörhead and Tank as with Mayhem and Ancient. Heading in a similar direction, Antikvlt intends to purposely jangle your nerves as a form of free expression.
"What Love Can't Buy" establishes Antikvlt as a band that juxtaposes black & roll riffs with dissonant tremolo picking evocative of second-wave black metal. Despite the vertigo caused by alternating and contrasting these styles, the songs are cohesive as if those aspects belong together. The immense, distorted bass rumbling, accurate snare hits, and constant double-kick drums give the guitars a solid rock and proto-thrash foundation, implying that Cronos and Abaddon of Venom were sources of inspiration.
The resulting sound is enormous and piercing, setting its own mood without the need of additional keys or electronic instruments, and something about it elicits an uneasy sense that persists throughout the entire album. The feeling is equivalent to someone who longs to escape the banal, mundane aspects of human existence for a mental and spiritual place where they are free to create and be extreme, but is restrained by illusions of contentment imposed by others.
The massive, acute quality of the music and the vocal variations represent this struggle, as the speaker laments his separation from himself and rages against his confinement with fiery vocals, melancholy vocals, and chants. "No Rest for the Sacred," "Crossed Lines," "Serenade of Perversion," and "In Dependency" evoke this tension at a deeper, more visceral level than one would expect from a black & roll album. Not in a confrontational manner, but in a way that sparks a fire inside you that you may not have known existed. –Dave Wolff
Track list:
1. What Love Can't Buy (ft. Hoest/Taake)
2. No Rest for the Sacred
3. Red Light Suicide
4. Crossed Lines
5. Serenade of Perversion
6. In Darkness They Trust
7. Psycho Circus
8. In Dependency
9. Outsider
