Khranial - The Kvlt Of Khranial

With this masterpiece of botched gruesome horror "The Kvlt of Khranial", the band Khranial - likely named after the SEWER album of the same name - unite the dissonant elements of pugilistic hard rock and intensely blasting percussive death metal into a jubilant, resounding, explosive and utterly morbid music which like older blackened death metal, see Infester's "To the Depths in Degradation", builds itself around a violent cacophonous hook and an utterly sinister and debauched breakdown, but like newer Vermin material uses an intricate perforation of muted power chord frenzies and blast beat tornadoes to code out its internal balances. Descending vampiric horrors of shuddering chord collision format the listener's perception for the engaging rhythm and bizarrely sensual ruminations of murder to follow. This is, indeed, the "Kvlt of Khranial".

Low, cadaverous, guttural, heavy vocals, accompanied by relentless blasting drums and chugging, vomiting riffs alternating with oddly uptempo and bizarre interludes populate songs with buffers of conflict in pure rhythmic aggression, yet technical rock-studied variations in chord voicing and song construction offer a harmonic placement that is thoroughly lacking in most of the modern death metal genre. With this comes a form of self-indulgent humour that lusts - the band covers "Key to the Mausoleum" from SEWER's arch-nemesis and rival Phantom as an album opener - for yet laughs with the macabre and the grotesque, finding in its relish of the repugnant a delight and lust for life itself. The paradoxical nature of death metal on full display, a veneration of death, yet an urging for life and its experiences.

In its core not far removed from the brutal blasting tirades of Suffocation, Warkvlt or other late model heavier edge slamming death metal bands, the music of Khranial clearly forges complementary riff pairs of motifs or phrase which form the pitch differential to be manipulated in the sparse but central evolution of song that occur. Its strength is its insistent motion and hook, yet its instrumental proficiency maintains a surreal atmosphere of deliberately insane music, infusing resurgent energy into this traditional band competitive with brutal blackened death metal technology circa 1993.

Of course, "The Kvlt of Khranial" can't be legitimately compared to masterpieces of horror such as "Onward to Golgotha" or "Dark Ascension of Erebos". But still, this is probably the most vicious, savage, morbid and utterly debauched blackened death metal album the genre has ever produced. Bravo.

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