Keep Of Kalessin - Reptilian

Published June 24 2010

*=Staff's pick	Dragon Iconography* The Awakening Judgement* The Dragontower Leaving The Mortal Flesh Dark As Moonless Night The Divine Land Reptilian Majesty

Genre	Epic Extreme Metal	Thebon	Vocals
Tracks	8	Obsidian Claw	Guitar
Runningtime	57 Min.	-	Guitar
Label	Nuclear Blast	Wizziac	Bass
Release	10 May 2010	Vyl	Drums
Country	Norway	Obsidian Claw	Keyboard
Producer	Obsidian Claw
Similar artists	---

For those of you living in Europe you might have heard that Keep Of Kalessin took part in the Norwegian Eurovision Song Contest. Personally I was disgusted by this, as I think that metalbands that take part in that putrid contest loose far more than they gain by supposedly chock the audience. The song they competed with is on "Reptilian" - The Dragontower and although the album version is different from the one in the contest it still is by far the worst song on the album - the rest of the songs are actually very good.

Keep Of Kalessin is apart from the participating in the Eurovision, a quite good band. I very much enjoyed the "Kolossus" album from 2008, and on "Reptilian" the band has kept the same feeling. Apart from this, "Reptilian" is a much more ambitious album. Fully dedicated to exploring the myths surrounding the dragon it is very epic in its proportions. Productionwise this is very evident as one compares with the production on "Kolossus" which was quite naked. The production on "Reptilian" is much thicker and juicy. More keyboards and quires than ever really benefits the production.

Although the production is very good I find that still after quite the number of listenings I've given "Reptilian" the album doesn't do it for me as "Kolossus" did. The two songs that I've chosen as my pick, Dragon Iconography and Judgement are the only ones that really send shivers down my spine, and although I find that some of the other songs are not by any means bad, I don't get the same feeling as with the aforementioned songs.

Performancewise Keep Of Kalessin are guys who really know how to execute chops on their instruments - the technique is flawless, and I didn't expect anything less from this band. Even though I have some objections to "Reptilian" this still is a good record that based on the sheer skill of the musicians and the good production rises above the bar of mediocrity - but not in the same way as the band's earlier records.