(written by Islander)
For the second year in a row we’re premiering a song by Ka’aper, a collective of musicians who now call Cyprus their home. It is happening for a second year in a row because Ka’aper have quickly followed their 2025 debut album While Flows the Nile with a second album titled When Gods Walked the Earth that’s set for release on June 12th by Satanath Records.
As described by the label, the new album encompasses “ten heavy and melodic stories about life and death, love and betrayal, the fleeting and the eternal,” moving “between visions of ancient mythology and reflections on the present day seen through its prism.”
For those visitors here who are familiar with While Flows the Nile, the new album includes similar musical ingredients, but with further variations and iterations. Some might call it melodic death metal, some might use the more amorphous term “dark metal”, but it’s probably better for us to use the song we’re premiering today as a more concrete representation of Ka’aper’s musical proclivities.
This song we’re premiering, “A Reason to Go Insane“, proves to be an interesting amalgam of contrasting sensations, a braiding together of physicality and hallucination, of irresistible muscle-moving grooves and ethereal elegance, of raging hostility and haunting melancholy.
The song begins with the reverberating ring of piano keys creating a melody that’s elegant, foreboding, and a bit… insane… or at least a hint of incipient insanity. The music that follows the overture is also menacing, but the gnarly riffing, the burly bass, and the jumping drums combine to create a hard-slugging and muscle-moving groove.
Scorching howls join in above the hefty punch and push of the music, but Ka’aper also layer in gently ringing notes with a tonal kinship to the overture but carrying a different mood. There’s something forlorn about those tones, and something bleak about the moaning violin chords and haunted spoken words that emerge beneath them.
After the hard-punching pulses and furious screams return, those ethereal and moody radiations persist in the music’s upper elevations, and the riffing moans again and seems to wail. But in their wisdom, Ka’aper bring the song to an end with a reprise of their viscerally compulsive groove, the kind of thing likely to cause headbanging from the waist up.
KA’APER Lineup:
Evgeny Pcheliakov – vocals
Tymur Glushan – guitars
Igor Kurzin – bass
Alexey Boychuk – drums
GUESTS:
Ellen Pcheliakova – violins
Julia Selikhova – vocals (track 7)
Mike Angastiniotis – vocals (track 10)
The new album was mixed and mastered by Max Baryshnikov. Satanath will release it on digipak CD (300 copies), with an 8-page booklet, and digitally. They recommend it for fans of Septicflesh, Dark Tranquillity, Rotting Christ, Insomnium, and Graveworm. Find pre-orders via the link below, and also listen to the album’s first single, “Eternity In Stone“.
PRE-ORDER:
https://satanath.bandcamp.com/album/sat419-kaaper-when-gods-walked-the-earth-2026
KA’APER:
https://kaaperofficial.com
https://www.instagram.com/kaaper_official
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61561403806389