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Kalmah - The Black Waltz review



Reviewer:
8.0

582 users:
8.52
Band: Kalmah
Album: The Black Waltz
Release date: February 2006


01. Defeat
02. Bitter Metallic Side
03. Time Takes Us All
04. To The Gallows
05. Svieri Doroga
06. The Black Waltz
07. With Terminal Intensity
08. Man Of The King
09. The Groan Of Wind
10. Mindrust
11. One From The Stands
12. This Mortal Coil [Carcass cover] [Japanese bonus]

This are interesting times to take a look at the Extreme Metal in Finland, a lot of releases are showing beloved bands evolving and adapting to the times. Kalmah is one of them, once tagged as a copycat of Children Of Bodom (yeah, other one), they have changed so much through the time that comparing them to the after mentioned act is quite ridiculous.

This is Kalmah's fourth release, strangely entitled "The Black Waltz" and is also the release that distances the most from the rest of their discography. For starters, the graphic treatment of the cover art is much different from what we're used to receive from the Finnish combo, this time the artwork simply sucks balls, I don't know what they were trying to do here, but they did it pretty bad.

Despite the terrible presentation, the album is quite good! A lot of changes in the band, being the most noticeable the vocals, instead of keeping the typical blackened shriek, they went for a Death Metal harsh growl, which suits perfectly to the Thrash/Death Metal vibe of the album. At least they didn't added clean vocals like every single band nowadays.

The approach in this album is much more riff-laden than other albums, with a lot of references to eighties Thrash Metal scene, with awesome guitar solos (something that is always welcome) and pounding grooveness.
The keyboards are less atmospheric this time, they act as instrument more, accompanying the guitar and even doing solos! The cooperation of guitar-keyboard is a nice arrangement in the band I must admit.

Killer songs! Yeah the album has some tracks that will blow you away young metalhead, "Time Takes Us All" is my personal favorite, although down-beat moments like the title track "The Black Waltz" deserve to be mentioned. "Man Of The King" and "One From The Stands" did fine a work leaving my neck all distended.

This might not be qualified as the album of the year and maybe some of you will hate the new vocals, but you have to give the band some credit for daring to change and be different, and that's gotta worth more than a million blackened shrieks.

Written by Undercraft | 01.03.2006



Guest review by
AnEpicDeath
Rating:
8.5
Well, from the first dark, crunchy guitar riff, it's obvious that that this isn't a typical Kalmah album. One of the most standout (and very probably the most controversial) changes lies in the vocal style, which have changed from phlegm-drenched black metal shrieks to low-register "cookie monster" death growls. I'm not a fan of the new vocals (take the terribly under-melodic vocal intro to "Time Takes Us All", for example), but I wasn't a huge fan of the old ones either, so this isn't a deal-breaking issue for me. Eventually I got used to the old ones, but they were very grating for quite a while. The quality and creativity haven't really changed; they've simply switched ends of the spectrum, so this issue really comes down to personal preference. However, a lot more than the vocals changed here.

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published 27.08.2009 | Comments (2)


Comments page 2 / 2

Comments: 37   Visited by: 222 users
02.05.2009 - 10:06
Ph0eNiX
Fire from Above
This album was their best work!
Two reasons why:
1)TimeTakes Us All
&
2)To the Gallows
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02.05.2009 - 13:48
Abattoir

Pretty strong release...agressive, fast songs with nice melodic guitars.

Personally I quite like this album, very enjoyable...
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25.05.2009 - 08:08
Uirapuru
Liver Failure
Quote:
The keyboards are less atmospheric this time, they act as instrument more, accompanying the guitar and even doing solos! The cooperation of guitar-keyboard is a nice arrangement in the band I must admit.


Yeah. Only decent parts in the album IMO.
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member of the true crusade against old school heavy metal, early 80s thrash, NWOBHM, traditional doom, first and second wave black metal, old school death metal, US power metal, 70s prog rock and atmospheric doomsludgestoner. o/
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13.08.2009 - 15:03
Rating: 9
flamey

Kalmah has been constantly slaying COB with every release since 2000, while Alexi was too busy painting his nails.
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13.08.2009 - 15:16
Elio
Red Nightmare
Written by flamey on 13.08.2009 at 15:03

Kalmah has been constantly slaying COB with every release since 2000, while Alexi was too busy painting his nails.


This is pretty much the best quote I've ever read in a review comment.
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IntoPlighT said: "Slipknot is 15 years old how the fuck is that Nu metal?"

BEST. QUOTE. EVER.
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24.11.2010 - 01:44
Rating: 10
Rozz

Written by iaberis on 19.11.2006 at 14:53

Indeed, they've changed their sound... Now they sound like Power Death Metal... Since I'm not fan of Death Metal, I don't like this change... They sounded better before, when they were a copy of Children Of Bodom...
Weird music... and weird cover art!!! It reminds me of the Pirates of the Caribean!

norther was the copy cat lol never kalmah the riff structures are very very very differant
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29.09.2016 - 20:10
Bad English
Tage Westerlund
I agree what you told about artwork and its one of rare things what to me talks whit me, I see aretwok and most DM artworks are not good to me, this is well not well but I always judge music and listen
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Life is to short for LOVE, there is many great things to do online !!!

Stormtroopers of Death - ''Speak English or Die''
apos;'
[image]
I better die, because I never will learn speek english, so I choose dieing
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