By Ryan Falla
Esteemed German rock trio Kadavar brings us another fascinating musical package with their new album ‘Rough Times’. Kadavar has never been a band to put themselves in a musical hole. Constant reinvention and experimentation with writing techniques keeps this band on top, and their newest release encapsulates the idea that Kadavar exists to avoid musical stagnation.
The intro to the record is the title track, which jumps out as rather eclectic and fascinating. Once the album gets settled, a strong sense of identity is created with the pounding riffage and laid-back grooves. It holds tightly onto your interest as it swims through multiple styles of “Kadavar”. There’s a lot of soft atmospheric song-crafting present within this record, almost like a metal version of the Beatles.
Throughout the record you’ll hit on some standard Kadavar tunes, not standard metal but standard “Kadavar”. It’s strange, the way they build a nearly unique sense of identity and musical presence throughout ‘Rough Times’. The record opens with some fascinatingly strange riffage and pushes through multiple tracks with piercing grooves.
Kadavar does a lot of musical exploration within this album, the track ‘Vampires’ kicks in with a drum/synth opening that shifts the landscape of ‘Rough Times’ ever so slightly into a territory that transcends metal and rock. Kadavar isn’t flipping the genre on its head and changing the game, but they are expanding boundaries and creating diverse formulas. In a way, that is more important than flipping a genre on its head since it encourages expansion of thought and musical ingenuity.
A lot of the meat of ‘Rough Times’ is entrenched within Kadavar’s self-created standard for what rock and metal should be. However, pocketed here and there within the album are some engagingly expansive tracks. ‘The Lost Child’ is a discomforting and genius mixture of Pink Floyd with Kadavar’s sense of dark wonder. The last third of the record is packed with these “experimental” tracks, which influences a new sense of life into the album as it switches gears in a big way.
‘Rough Times’ is a journey from groove-centric rock to music borne out of unique sentimentalities, a journey very much worth your time from start to finish.
Rating: 8.5/10
If you like what you’ve read/seen, buy a shirt and help keep Metal Assault running full time!
Come to one of our events!
Record Label: Nuclear Blast
Release Date: September 29th 2017
Track Listing:
01. Rough Times (3:38)
02. Into The Wormehole (4:18)
03. Skeleton Blues (4:24)
04. Die Baby Die (4:18)
05. Vampires (4:49)
06. Tribulation Nation (5:04)
07. Words Of Evil (3:37)
08. The Lost Child (5:52)
09. You Found The Best in Me (4:58)
10. A L’Ombre Du Temps (3:57)
Total Duration: 44:55
Kadavar links: website | facebook | twitter | instagram