Meir
They’re called punk and metal, but at their hearts Norwegian berserkers Kvelertak are the living, fire breathing embodiment of rock and roll. “This is going to blow your brains out”, says singer Erlend Hjelvik.
The Norwegian band's second album, produced by Converge's Kurt Ballou and featuring cover art from Baroness' John Baizley, is their first for Warner subsidiary Roadrunner.
Despite its stylistic allegiance to extreme metal sub-genres like hardcore and black metal, Kvelertak's self-titled debut back in 2010 was noticeably lacking in grim vibes. That could've had something to do with the lively, hard rock-inspired guitar solos, or maybe it was those self-referential battle cries. In any case, these Scandinavians were more interested in generating fist-pumping positivity than bumming people out.
In the long run, KVELERTAK's tongue-tripping name and insistence on singing in their native Norwegian may be their undoing. Or at least it will obstruct their commercial prospects (fair warning, Roadrunner) since even listeners who thoroughly enjoyed the sextet's impressive first album may find them...
You'd be hard pressed to find a metal band more hyped than Kvelertak in the last two years. Having released their self-titled debut in 2010 through Indie Recordings, it wasn't until that album was released in the US in March 2011 that shit really started getting nuts. Following a number of high prof