KRPL – Blei

 

 

KRPL – Blei
Kerberos Records – 2023
Instrumental, Metal, Stoner, Sludge, Psych
Rated: ****

They hail from Graz, Austria and we know them from the 2021 split with Tarlung, but KRPL has been releasing music since around 2014. Which means KRPL has surely been around for ten years now and we should be revisiting all their releases. Which, counting the new Blei album means nine releases on Bandcamp in total. And we should not just be revisiting all their release because they’ve been around for ten years and because we dug that Tarlung split release. Nope, simply because Blei is one hell of an album! Nine tracks of amazing instrumental metal. Stoner metal, sludge metal, with a psychedelic twist here or a bit of a progressive touch there; and a whole lot of force. Driving force. Like perpetual motion, like gears perfectly interlocking and making the machine go boom! Cause there’s a lot of brutal and booming energy coming from the cutting riffs and the rumbling bass work. And there are those crashing and thrusting drums, pushing the tempo and steering the riffs into ever more ingenious corners. A few soaring guitar lines in tracks like Sonnenmord and Hydra gives Blei even more of a bite and a maw. Teeth marks are left once Blaues Gift, with that ominous drum roll and jackknife guitar work. Ye gods, these mothersludgers keep going full force, without letting up, without letting go of the reigns, they propel you forward, ever forward until those last moments with Maus. Which uses a bit of groove metal, and an underlying growling, a bass that resembles a lawn mower, and not just the automated mouse kinds, no the huge ones to mow entire fields with, to make Blei come to an even grander ending. And then full stop, no prisoners, only a heart full of joy and a weird smile as if you had just gotten hit over the head by a lead pipe…

(Written by JK)

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