Krv is a French black metal band with some pretty shameless dance-metal influences, comprised of vocalist Nicolas Zivkovich and multi-instrumentalist Louise Lambert. Krv’s name translates to “blood” in Serbian and their sound combines various second and third-wave influences like Dark Throne and Empire, with industrial dance a la Godflesh, and the more heretical sounds of Behemoth and, because I’m feeling particularly sassy at the moment, let’s say, Cradle of Filth.
Upon a cursory listen, there are a couple things that leap out at me immediately, two of which are the songwriting and production. Despite how raw a lot of these tracks sound and the relentless energy they exhibit, they’re all tightly composed while managing to sound incredibly clean and well balanced. This should not be surprising given the fact that Lambert is also the master-composer behind the dark, pop-bombast of DDENT’s post-doom and twisted-angelism. What didn’t realize until possible my third listen, was that the drum work, which outside of the acoustic portions performed by Renaud Lemaitre, is largely programmed. As I mentioned, this was hardly noticeable on my first listen, an undeniable mercy as electronic beats in black metal can be about as much fun as having toothpicks jammed under your eyelids. As interesting as I find Mysticum, the desaturated quality of their sequences can make me feel like I’m trapped in a sensory deprivation chamber at times, my tolerance for their choice of percussion is low to non-existent. I’ll take a firm tom slap and gritty bass pummel on a live drum kit any day of the week.
Back to the matter at hand, you’re probably wondering how Krv’s debut self-titled stacks up at this point. Well, I'd say it stacks pretty highly in my estimation. The first track “Motherless Abyss” gets things started with a classic dark Finnish tremolo before introducing a break-beat and sliding into a howling, goth-industrial march through what feels like an abandoned coal-town, where the fires from a century-old mining accident still burn violently below. The following track “Forlorn” increases the BPM as well as the desperation with forceful acerbic guitars, sharp grating grooves, and dry vocal deliveries that come to resemble a parched Jaz Coleman. There isn’t a single track on Krv's self-titled that isn’t worth taking note of: “Flamme Noire” is a dark-house and crust-inferno, “Open Your Temple Unto Him” borrows a middle-eastern melody and heightens it with haunting atmospherics as if taking a page of out Mamaleek’s playbook, “Hécatombe” lands like a cinder block on a crystal vase with murky, crust-punk grooves and devastating artillery-volley percussion, “Autarcie Spirituelle” is an intense, bone-wrecking, mechanical melee, while closer “Transcendence Through Death” feeds the triumphalism of Enslaved through the abattoir of early Kvelertak’s party-killing, lawless punk flay, with the relentless wedge of industrial blast-beats pushing the track ever closer to the edge until it finally topples over into the abyss. Few, if any other, bands can spill as much blood on the dance floor, with as much nihilistic flair and intensity as Krv has on their debut.
Back to the matter at hand, you’re probably wondering how Krv’s debut self-titled stacks up at this point. Well, I'd say it stacks pretty highly in my estimation. The first track “Motherless Abyss” gets things started with a classic dark Finnish tremolo before introducing a break-beat and sliding into a howling, goth-industrial march through what feels like an abandoned coal-town, where the fires from a century-old mining accident still burn violently below. The following track “Forlorn” increases the BPM as well as the desperation with forceful acerbic guitars, sharp grating grooves, and dry vocal deliveries that come to resemble a parched Jaz Coleman. There isn’t a single track on Krv's self-titled that isn’t worth taking note of: “Flamme Noire” is a dark-house and crust-inferno, “Open Your Temple Unto Him” borrows a middle-eastern melody and heightens it with haunting atmospherics as if taking a page of out Mamaleek’s playbook, “Hécatombe” lands like a cinder block on a crystal vase with murky, crust-punk grooves and devastating artillery-volley percussion, “Autarcie Spirituelle” is an intense, bone-wrecking, mechanical melee, while closer “Transcendence Through Death” feeds the triumphalism of Enslaved through the abattoir of early Kvelertak’s party-killing, lawless punk flay, with the relentless wedge of industrial blast-beats pushing the track ever closer to the edge until it finally topples over into the abyss. Few, if any other, bands can spill as much blood on the dance floor, with as much nihilistic flair and intensity as Krv has on their debut.
Grab a copy of Krv's debut from Chien Noir Records' Bandcamp here.
