KHOLD

Arguably the world's leading exponent of stripped-down, mid-paced, groove-inherent Norwegian black metal not named DARKTHRONE, KHOLD makes a welcome return after several years' hiatus with "Hundre a Gammal". This band's stock in trade is deceptively simple dirge, barren and bleak skeletons of songs unadorned by keyboards or overdubs, scraped raw from the permafrost and lurching to sullen life under creaking protest. While they often play at a funereal tempo and rarely break out anything resembling a blast, KHOLD manage to create a taut, electric tension with these hardscrabble songs, tunes so minimalist as to be plodding in the hands of lesser mortals.

It's little tricks that make a KHOLD song compelling. The verse of "Satt Dinn Svik" is a good example – a simple, dissonant note, with a churning bass line underneath it, and a thudding beat, and that's it. But that clangorous guitar chord contains all the mystique and glowering misanthropy of the most chaotic black metal outfits, ratcheted down into a sinister skulk. The brief blast in the middle of the song, and the groovier riff that manifests in the chorus, create a little bite-sized epic that clocks in at a Spartan 3:36.

If anything detracts from the KHOLD vibe's full realization, it's the vocals – mostly they fit with the music, but they seem far too loud in the mix, and a little too creaky and yell-y for the obsidian music. They rattle around atop the song, where a less forceful, more dour vocal might intertwine with the guitar lines more – it's a minor point, but it does distract on occasion.

That minor criticism aside, KHOLD remain masters of carving gloomy sheets of black fog out of the night air and delivering them in sodden slabs, unfit for the disposition of any friend of sunlight or happiness. "Hundre a Gammal" is the sound of cave dust and mouldering bones, impassive forces of slow, inevitable destruction, and bleak downpours in petrified forests. Slow even when they're not slow, teeth-grindingly malevolent and full of bilious scorn, KHOLD dredge up the bad vibes like no other.