Album Review: Kavrila – Blight (Medusa Crush Recordings/Breathe Plastic Records/Backbite Records)

Hailing from Sweden but playing a NOLA-inspired brand of sludge/crust metal, Blight is the new album from Kavrila due to be released on August 4th via Medusa Crush Recordings/Breathe Plastic Records/Backbite Records.

For all the dirty & crusty sound of the muck Kavrila spew, one of the more noticeable things about opener, Each is the punk energy that it exudes. At just over 2 minutes long it’s fast, heavy but with plenty of hardcore rhythm.

Things get much more challenging on the likes of Lungs & Gold. The slow doomy tempo of the former darken the skies while the latter adds some nice sounding atmospherics. The likes of which wouldn’t be out of place on a black metal record. It helps that once the song gets going it definetly draws comparisons to that style of metal too.

Demolish brings back the pacier sound, an energetic number with some great riffs & a killer drum beat. It’s not quite got the pull of the previous songs though & ends up being mostly forgettable.

That’s less of a problem for the doomy/black metal mix of Golem, an intensely beat heavy track. The kind of rhythm that grabs you by the groin just to get your attention! Short & to the point, the vocals are nasty & visceral resulting in the best track of the album.

Apocalypse & Each (Part Two) finish things off with a bang, the former being just a minute & a half of furious metal while the latter is surprisingly lighter in tone. The longest track, coming in at 5 minutes, it adds some welcome melody before coming crashing to a halt. It’s a bit of an abrupt moment as the drum beat implies things are about to explode.

Instead it just sort of fizzles out.

Blight is quite a unique listen. The combination of crusty sludge metal with punk energy & black metal moments shouldn’t really work but Kavrilla make it sound easy.

Kavrila – Blight Full Track Listing:

1. Each
2. Lungs
3. Abandon
4. Gold
5. Demolish
6. Golem
7. Apocalypse
8. Each (Part Two)

You can pick up Kavrila’s music over on Bandcamp as well as through most streaming services. Check the band out over on Facebook & on YouTube!