(NCS writer DGR has long-established his bona fides as a Carach Angren fan, and so it’s no surprise that he would focus on this Dutch group’s evil new EP The Cult of Kariba that will be released on October 17th by Season of Mist. He seems very happy with what he found there.)
Five years is a mighty long walk between an album and an EP for an active band but such is the case for the black metal storytellers of Carach Angren and their newest EP The Cult Of Kariba.
The distance between the group’s newest EP and their album Frankensteina Strataemontanus has been pretty sizeable. Granted, some of this was due to the pandemic years in which many bands saw the brakes effectively slammed on any sort of performance or touring plans, and for those who had literally just released an album and weren’t planning on being at home so soon, you can see in many different group timelines how it might’ve affected them.
For some, the need to create was immediate and you saw periods of intense activity while bands would hammer out singles and covers for lack of anything else to do. Others, probably a quiet sort of frustration. No two approaches could be deemed correct and creativity certainly doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s not a switch to be thrown on and off, and seeking inspiration so soon after you’ve just put out an opus to a ghoulish take on the Frankenstein story could freeze anyone’s mind for a while. That and an ever-fluid drummer situation not helping much either, having now reduced Carach Angren down to two core members, effectively transforming them into two studio-dwelling ghosts haunting the boards when they get the chance.
photo by Stefan Heilemann
The members of Carach Angren kept busy in that time though, with solo projects abounding and even songwriting for larger acts in different worlds of the rock genre. But, the call to return to the outfits, regalia, and spectacle of ghastly storytelling has proven too strong for the crew here, and so we cycle around to a direct continuation of a tale previously told on Lammendam back in 2008, for four songs and a narration constructing the twenty minutes of The Cult Of Kariba.
The new tale delivered to us by Carach Angren is strongly in line with what the band had done previously. Of the four actual songs, three are symphonic black metal takes with a heavy emphasis on a high-tempo and theatricality. These are ideas that had been toyed with and expounded upon on albums previously, and now with The Cult Of Kariba the band are honing it down to its finest elements.
Only lead single “Ik Kom Uit Het Graf” appears to be an oddball at first go, the industrial and brutally heavy guitar chugging elements of the song making a better case for industrial and black metal combination than most bands do who bear that genre-descriptor. Keeping things fairly simple, the song comes off one part odd experiment and one part narrative exposition.
“Ik Kom Uit Het Graf” is also a song that works far better in its full lineup than as a haunted standalone single. Carach Angren albums tend to have that effect though; perhaps due to the nature of the group being cast as deliverers of evil tales that, more often than not, you just want to make a full run at in a release anyway. Cult Of Kariba being distinct and compact songs certainly makes that a hell of a lot easier than say the forty or so minutes that Carach Angren have asked of you previously.
That feeling doesn’t work if the songs aren’t there to back it up though. Only issuing four songs – again, the narrative intro makes five – is a big gamble because you need every song to nail it to the wall. In that sense, Carach Angren do deliver with some massive symphonic backing and a speedier tempo than songs have had on the last few albums. Perhaps they felt empowered by the many reinforcements they called upon to help complete Cult Of Kariba so they could just eject some white-hot fast songs – second song “Draw Blood” is relentless on that front – that are all about bombast in their opening and steadily become more complicated as the tale becomes more vicious?
Alongside the tag-team of Seregor and Ardek, the band have asked drummer Gabe Seeber, violinist Nikos Mavridis, and guitarist Patrick Damiani to help fill out the gaps on the instrumental front, and then Tim Wells to help lay out the story of our latest haunted resurrection in opener “A Malevolent Force Stirs”. “The Resurrection of Kariba” on the other hand is written like a movie, providing the dance and soundtrack to a film that you haven’t yet seen. The opening ominous piano work only gives way to a tornado of guitars and multi-pronged vocal attacks as the description of our malevolent spectre is being brought to life.
The climax of “Venomous 1666” takes a similar tack, as it is also of the symphonic blast-beat and black metal combination. The music here is a little less simple and straight-shooting than their full album five years prior, but there’s enough spectacle and shiny keys ringing about to keep people interested if they’re not there for that initial wall of phantom wailing and blood soaked nightmares in each song.
The Cult Of Kariba is succesful for the band on that front. Often with an EP like this it is a preview of things forthcoming from the band – and we’d expect that Carach Angren likely have more up their sleeves – but this also establishes that this band can work really well on just an EP front. There is less room for indulgence or getting lost in the musical weeds when you’re asked to keep things to four songs, and a tightly compacted and targeted delivery of their latest phantasmagoria works in their favor.
The Cult Of Kariba flies by in the blink of an eye but it does a great job setting the scene for eventual hauntings in the future, as well as whatever horrifying events take place within its own bounds. One wouldn’t be able to guess whether Carach Angren are eyeing continuing down this particular path in the future, but the one-off immediacy of this EP makes a great impression in the meantime.
https://orcd.co/carachangrenthecultofkariba
https://carachangren.bandcamp.com/album/the-cult-of-kariba
https://www.carach-angren.nl/
http://www.facebook.com/carachangren