(written by Islander)
Today we encounter once again the term “dark metal“, which is how two labels are describing a debut album they’re releasing from the Cypriot band Ka’aper. It is one of the most amorphous genre descriptions you can find in the realms of metal, most often used (it seems) when none of the other more established and more descriptive labels fit very well, even the multiply-hyphenated ones.
What it means in the case of Ka’aper and their first full-length While Flows The Nile is a subject we’ll explore today through our premiere of a song from the album named “Eyes Of Ka’aper“. But first, a bit of background about what has motivated the band.
Here is how Satanath Records and The End of Time Records present the album:
Pitch-black darkness was spawned on the southern shore of the island of Cyprus in April 2024. Inspired by myths of ancient Egypt, scorched by the relentless sun and embraced by the desert wind, KA’APER… has some blood-chilling stories — tales of times when ancient gods walked the Earth and the Nile was young….
Honest music is born from honest emotions. This eerie debut is woven from moments of despair and anger of the band members. The past year has been reflected into the ten fragments of macabre metal music and gathered into the full-length album titled While Flows the Nile. The ancient past and the present intertwined in these songs and the old gods enfleshed right before the eyes. The breath of horrors from the deepest tombs is already chilling the skin. Get ready to immerse.
And now let’s become immersed in “Eyes of Ka’aper“.
In the context of this song, Ka’aper open with sounds of mystery, with slow symphonic strings and brightly ringing piano keys. From there they bring in heavy booming grooves and menacing riffage that snarls and writhes. When the vocals arrive, they viciously eject the words in strangled growls and fang-bared howls as the guitars roil and sear.
Sounds of mystery re-emerge through eerily shimmering and vividly darting tones above big tumbling drums, hard-slugging bass lines, and savage snarls, segmented by piercing lead-guitar ecstasies. A violin also lends an exotic melody to the affair, slowly weaving its way through the bone-busting beats and bestial vocals.
And so “dark metal” in this case refers to a interweaving of ingredients from death and black metal (including lots of vocal viciousness), with some symphonic and some electronic accents, heavy grooves, and mystical melodies that seem to straddle a line between ancient and futuristic.
KA’APER is:
Evgeny Pcheliakov – vocals
Timur Glushan – guitars
Igor Kurzin – bass
Alexey Boychuk – drums
Guests: Ellen Pcheliakova – violins
The album was mixed and mastered by Max Baryshnikov. Satanath Records and The End of Time Records will release it on April 30th in a jewel-box CD edition with an 8-page booklet (limited to 300 copies), as well as digitally. They recommend it for fans of Septicflesh, Dark Tranquillity, Rotting Christ, Insomnium, and Graveworm. Pre-orders are available now.
PRE-ORDER:
https://satanath.bandcamp.com/album/sat386-kaaper-while-flows-the-nile-2025
theendoftimerecords@gmail.com
KA’APER:
https://kaaperofficial.com/
https://www.instagram.com/kaaper_official
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61561403806389