Location: Hamburg
Country: Germany
Genre: Experimental sludge
Full length: Thunderhunter
Format: Digital album, vinyl/CD bundle, vinyl
Label: Exile On Mainstream Records
Release date: February 21, 2025
Alternative and grunge may have been turned into a fleeting fad in the mid to late 1990s, but bands like Melvins, Unsane, Swans, and Cop Shoot Cop, among others, survived to inspire new bands like Eisenvater, Rossburger Report, and Karla Kvlt, who released their debut album last month.
"Thunderhunter" is the logical progression of where grunge was going before it broke aboveground and the mainstream realized they could cash in, with the mysterious and slightly dangerous post-punk street rhythm that would eventually fill the gap left by generic hard rock and glam metal when it imploded.
Karla Kvlt, led by Eisenvater's Markus E. Lipka, moves beyond the pre-mainstream vibes of grunge to explore the capturing and channeling of emotion, as well as the space between what is understood and what is unknown. It forges excursions deep into the subconscious mind and whatever link it may have with the infinite, exposing what one may discover, whether light or dark.
"Thunderhunter" frequently approaches the subterranean grittiness you'll find in experimental stoner, becoming repetitious enough to induce a natural high. With Black Sabbath/Trouble/Candlemass vibes, ethereal guitar and bass passages, apocalyptic dirges with distant keyboards, hauntingly monotone vocals, atmospheric bell effects, mystical sounds and thundering, booming percussion, it all creates an existence that deviates from how we anticipate rock to sound, thus it appeals to your sensibilities.
Following the DIY recording method, this album goes on to piece doom, drone, post rock, sludge, and noise into the puzzle, becoming an immense statement that’s evocative of a waking dream state. We've all heard how much leaning toward one or more genres of music helps shape one's own individual character. Deconstructing, recreating, and transmuting the mind while blurring the lines between live performances and rituals, "Thunderhunter" exemplifies the letting go to rediscover oneself.
The album is described as devastating one moment and an example of beauty the next, compared to a flowering plant pushing upward through a slab of concrete, or to tides flowing, ebbing, and flowing again. Since those waves progressively undermine your ideas of what grunge, doom, or sludge should be, I can most easily identify with the latter description. Karla Kvlt’s talent lies in finding the connecting spaces between musical genres thought of as being incompatible. –Dave Wolff
Lineup:
Markus E. Lipka: Guitars, guitar soundscapes, voice
Teresa Matilda Curtens: Bass, vocals
J. Victor Wientjes: Heavy drums, synth soundscapes
Track list:
1. Karma
2. Temple
3. Swallowed
4. Magna Mater
5. Mun Kvlta
6. Hekate
7. Thunderhunter
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