(written by Islander)
Reportedly, the German band Karloff “formed in 2018 initially as a means for erstwhile Graveyard Ghoul member Tom Horrified to blow off some punk-oriented steam with a couple close comrades.” But they’ve obviously turned out to be more than a one-and-done “let’s do this for the hell of it” outfit.
Not only have Karloff followed up their initial 2018 demo with five more releases, including an EP, a handful of splits, and their 2022 debut album The Appearing, they’ve persistently evolved their music in ways that most listeners probably wouldn’t have expected based solely on their first couple of releases.
And they’ve done that again on their forthcoming second album Revered by Death, as you’re about to discover for yourselves based on our full streaming premiere of the record today.
These eight new songs don’t precisely follow the same blueprint, which is to say that you might find yourselves moving closer to the edge of your seat as you make your way through them, intrigued about what Karloff are going to do from one song to the next. The three-song sequence that begins the album should put you in that frame of mind.
The opener “A Pessimistic Soaring” is a burly and menacing affair, one whose punchy drums and steel-wool riffing gets heads moving and muscles throbbing right damned quick. But this is, as the song’s title portends, a pessimistic soaring, and so Karloff soon throw in a shrill and spiraling solo — just before vicious snarls start gnashing at our throats.
Even the beastly and bleak riffing hungrily elevates and brays, joined by yet another vividly quivering solo and flurries of slashing fretwork. Meanwhile, those punchy and punky rhythms continue doing their viscerally compulsive dirty work. The song’s not fancy or pretentious — Karloff have always been more feral than filigreed — but it’s catchier than chlamydia.
“Die Wiederkehr der Dunkelei” is No. 2 on the track list, and it’s not quite as straight-forward as the opener. In this one, the riffing creates a more desperate mood, while the interesting and somewhat off-kilter interplay between drums and bass is even more likely to grab attention than in the opener. The wild-animal savagery of the vocals also continues grabbing attention, and while the initial mood of the song is gloomily unsettling, the riffing changes and becomes more wild and fierce in its throbbing and roiling convulsions.
Those first two songs are similar in their compact lengths but the third one, “When The Flames Devour You All“, is twice as long. Initially it’s significantly slower in its pace and dramatically more bleak and haunting in its mood. Looking back, you can trace an emotionally descending arc from the first song through the third one.
The ragged riffing seems to moan and wail, and the serrated-edge, high-pitched vocals match those sensations in their feeling of excruciating torment. Make no mistake, the rhythmic grooves are still hard-slugging and conducive to moving heads, but the music is dreadful and dire — until just past the midway point, when the rhythm section pick up steam and the riffing accelerates too.
The mood is then still distressing but more turbulent, and the guitars also fiercely flash. When Karloff decelerate once more, they bring the gloom again, but also an aura of supernatural terror and ghostly haunting.
To repeat, by the time you’ve made your way through those first three songs, it becomes apparent that Karloff’s brand of metalpunk has morphed and turned in some perhaps unexpectedly grim and moodier directions on this new album. It would be natural by this point to wonder what’s coming next.
Rather than continuing to take the remaining five songs one by one in detail, let’s just say that they’ll give you a progression of continuing twists and turns — a further big step into haunting eeriness and paranormal horror with the hallucinatory (and groove-less) “On Weathered Altar“, but also a bounce-back from that hellish domain in the punked-up (but still scary and dismal) “Prince Of Parasites“.
Continuing to move in a different arc from the album’s emotional low-point, in “Regicide” Karloff lay down vividly jumping beats and gritty, feral riffs that swarm and blare, delivering a head-hooking, muscle-moving song, as haughty as it is nasty — but it also takes a couple of turns near the end, one soft and mysterious, the other racing and vicious, in which the drums go wild and the riffing seems to contort in pain.
To finish the album, “Crown Kvlt Fate” is raucous and raging, spiteful and venomous, but also home to bruising grooves and electrifying guitar-solo-spasms, while “Elisabetha’s Revenge” recalls the head-moving grips and black-eyed menace of “A Pessimistic Soaring” but also pulls the listener one more time into sinkholes of misery and visions of horror. In that closer the bass and drums play especially prominent and adventurous roles, and when the band lock into a nerve-twitching riff Karloff also add some especially spooky other ingredients.
All in all, Revered by Death includes Karloff’s darkest work yet, but it’s still addictive as well as disturbing, and not the kind of thing that will let either your muscles or your head relax.
Revered by Death is set for international release on January 23rd by Dying Victims Productions, and you can order it now:
PRE-ORDER:
https://dyingvictims.com/
https://dyingvictimsproductions.bandcamp.com/album/revered-by-death
KARLOFF:
https://www.facebook.com/karloffpunk