Kveldulv

Branikald’s third full-length album, Kveldulv, has the distinction of probably being the most standard of Branikald albums, in the sense that it’s got the most Branikald feel of all the albums. Its structure is exactly what one would expect from the band, and the music follows a very similar pattern.

The album follows the tried-and-true pattern of the Blazebirth Hall’s many, many albums. This pattern consists of a tripartite division of the album. First of all comes the surprising part: black metal with unexpectedly varied, harsh melodic riffs, played over fast and almost monotonous drumming, to which are added Kaldrad’s slightly drowned out, tortured rasps. This part consists primarily of the first song, Key to Andkosm, as well as a gradually decreasing presence within the following two tracks. However, these two following tracks tend to pick up the more stereotypical Blazebirth Hall kind of black metal, which tends to be extremely repetitive and harsh, though powerfully atmospheric and somewhat melodic, in a twisted black metal way. In that sense, this album is perhaps closest to Branikald’s later classic, the 1998 album Хмель Мизантропии (also known as The Mead of Misanthropy/Rausch Der Misanthropie). However, the important part is that the same barren, repetitive structures are filled up with an extraordinary amount of melody, similar to some Norwegian Second Wave bands’ work but considerably harsher and less varied, especially due to the limited number of instruments used (never has Branikald used, say, keyboards, even during the creation of the ambient pieces).

Another aspect which instantly gives this album away as a Blazebirth Hall production is the musical arrangement, including the track listing. Almost all BBH bands’ black metal albums have the same structure of harsh black metal for the first 70-80% or so of the album’s playing time, before turning into an ambient ending. They’ve probably learned this trick from Burzum, and indeed one of the albums whose structure most resembles this one’s is Burzum’s Hvis Lyset Tar Oss: three long black metal tracks followed by a quarter-hour ambient one. In this case we’re dealing with Kosmhall, an initially very slow, minimalistic ambient piece that serves as a very suitable ending for the album, all done on guitar in a way designed to imitate classical music but with a tiny little raw side to it all. The pace of the music varies a bit, going faster as time passes, yet with absolutely no major change occurring at all.

Branikald is one of those bands whose career consists of a large number of similarly sounding albums, and Kveldulv is perhaps one of the, if not the most typical of them all. That said, it’s a very solid piece of black metal with some epic ambient music to close up the deal. In this way it resembles a slightly rawer version of the band’s best effort, namely the magnificent Хладавзор/Frost Vision.