ALBUM REVIEW: The Funeral Pyre – Kvaen

Sweden’s KVAEN, a one man project featuring AUTUMN DEATH guitarist and vocalist Jakob Björnfot, look poised to take the extreme metal underground by storm. Combining caustic speed and black metal elements, KVAEN looks to the underground extremity of the 80s for inspiration. The band’s debut album, The Funeral Pyre, is a diverse and magnificent mix of all the best of classic extreme metal music, whilst giving it a solid, modern touch and sharper production that works incredibly well with the excellent music on offer.

Opening track Revenge By Fire has a strong, classic speed metal feel to it, with tight rhythms, razor sharp lead riffs and caustic vocals giving this an acerbic sound right out of the gate. Blending these savage elements with a powerful viking metal edge that gives it an especially vast sound, it’s a a really solid opening statement that kicks the album off on an incredibly high note. Yee Naaldlooshii proves to be even more intense and ferocious than the opener, with fierce, melodic leads and authoritative drumming making this an instantly catchy offering that combines bellicose blackened thrash with some great atmospherics and a few more primal moments that it’s very hard not to love, proving to be a short, sharp shock of brilliant guitar work and hellish vocals.

Moving onto The Funeral Pyre‘s title track, KVAEN lean more into the grandiose elements of their sound, utilising cleaner guitar tones and a slower pace to give the listener one of the early highlights of the album. Although the aggressive elements are here, this is much more of a viking metal affair, with robust rhythms and softer, sublime moments injecting a little variety into the mix. Scaling back the extravagant riffs in favour of a more minimalist approach to guitars, it’s a clear example of how KVAEN is more than capable of writing music that is impressive even with a much more subdued style. Septem Peccata Mortalia is a shorter, punchier offering that does a great job of striking a good balance between classic 80’s speed and black metal and the more monolithic tropes of viking metal. Chugging riffs give it a military feel, interlaced with some glorious lead guitar flourishes that are imaginative and eclectic, making for a brief yet brilliant masterclass in crushing thrash that won’t disappoint.

The Wolves Throne opens the second half of The Funeral Pyre with a cinematic offering that really sees the guitars come to the fore. The musicianship on display here is absolutely world class, with slick leads and thunderous drumming giving this a bombastic feel. This is, in equal parts, the most epic and the most energetic track on the album up until this point, with the song jumping between frenetic, rabid blasts of black metal and a more verbose, weighty viking metal sound, making it stand head and shoulders above many of the other songs on the record. As We Serve The Masters Plan is a bleak and funeral slab of black metal with lots of virtuosic melodies and some truly feral vocal deliveries that make for a razor sharp and cutting listen. The sound on this particular track is far darker and colder than on many of the others on the album, and leans more prominently on the bands black metal influences, with a few subtle traditional metal elements peppered liberally throughout for good measure.

In the final push of The Funeral Pyre, Bestial Winter starts to stray from the tried and tested speed/black/viking metal formula somewhat, with more progressive musicianship and some of the most impressive guitar work on the whole record. The core aspects of KVAEN‘s sound are still there, notably in the excellent rhythms and savage singing, but you get the sense on first hearing this track this song is the first tentative steps by the band to start to establish their own sound, their own distinct musical voice, whilst still paying homage to their myriad of influences. Hymn To Kvaenland brings The Funeral Pyre to a close with a bleakly beautiful melodic black metal assault. It’s a much slower and more measured affair than the rest of the album, and as an instrumental piece, it really allows the music itself to come to the fore and carry the album to its conclusion. The fierce, eerie leads and the sombre atmosphere that pervades the whole song really make this an intriguing offering, and a fantastic way to end an equally fantastic debut album.

It would be incredibly unfair to write this album off as nothing more than a homage to old school black and speed metal. Although KVAEN does take plenty of inspiration from bands of this ilk, it’s clear that Björnfot has the right combination of talent and technical skill to make some extremely impressive and eclectic music. From the solid rhythm guitars to the soaring leads, and with some punishing drum beats and monstrous vocals, this is an album that has one foot firmly in the old school camp, whilst simultaneously having a fresh, modern production and plenty of imaginative ideas. It’s a great debut that lays down some strong foundations for a long and storied career of brilliant music.

Rating: 8/10

The Funeral Pyre is out now via Black Lion Records. 

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