Kjeld – Skym
With 1 lonely 2010 EP lurking in their back catalog, the Netherlands own Kjeld may not be stirring a prolific stew, but judging by the highly advanced songwriting and strong unification of ferocity and mid-90’s Scandinavian atmosphere, Skym is a mature and very striking release for this quintet. It is all about quality and not the quantity after all, and this band has delivered a searing full-length with depth and focus.
Even though Kjeld often lay the blasting hammer down, Skym benefits from excellent pacing in the speed department. The band knows when to ease off the attack to allow subtle synth textures to seep in along with a well placed and audible bass line and it gives the album a lot of character when they embrace a slower frostbitten groove. The riffwork is truly great, centering on those higher end chords that disorient with a strangely melodic dissonance for the aforementioned Scandinavian influence, but tracks like Us Grun break out of the mold with a plodding double bass march and hefty power chord riffs that inject a pleasing weight to their sound before erupting back into the memorable nature of their tremolo firestorm. Repeated listens really unlock the genius in these tracks, for each song holds onto a life all it’s own within the scaring framework of Kjeld’s hateful style. This feeling is further perpetuated by vocalist Skier’s unwavering and blistered screams. He doesn’t break character with his full on delivery and it somehow acts as a sensible contrast up against songs with so much feeling and movement as found on the hook laden track Bonifatius.
Skym has arrived and really appealed to my appreciation of the mid 90’s black metal aesthetic by way of endlessly memorable and superiorly crafted songs. There is an obvious passion and conviction detonating from this material and even in a sea of bands decades deep, Kjeld managed to rise to the surface and demand just as much attention from the listener as they themselves have put into the feeling and traditional spirit within this expertly sculpted album. -Marty
Hammerheart Records
Worm Gear 
Frisian black metal! Ordered!