Kêres – The King Sleeps without Tears [EP]

It pretty much says it all about Atvar, that while recording the latest full-length ‘Vexilloid’ he just recorded another Kêres EP in the same session. Thus, instead of making one overtly long recording, we are served with a 30 minute album followed by 18 more minutes of regressive Black Metal as presented on ‘The King Sleeps without Tears’.

While recorded in the same session, the sound on the EP is a tad different, although the contrast is much less big between these two releases than with the preceding recordings. The two main differences are the slightly rawer and more distorted guitar sound and the apparent absence of keyboards on ‘The King Sleeps without Tears’. Otherwise, the musical content is fairly comparable with ‘Vexilloid’, once again mixing the heaviness of early Celtic Frost and a mid-tempo version of old Slayer together with Beherit, Barathrum and the second period of Black Metal releases of Darkthrone. As always the hoarse throat of Atvar remains a perfect complement to the catchy raw riffs. Meanwhile the riffs of Kêres are bareboned and minimal and avoid any unnecessary complexity, and the drums vary just enough to create a bit of diversity. Having said that, ‘Remain’ does have a bit of a twin guitar riff going. But not to worry: this degree of sophistication is sporadic and therefore praiseworthy, but certainly doesn’t detract from the delightfully simplistic band aesthetics.

Even though you know exactly what to expect from Kêres, the band never fails to deliver or loses its fresh sound. Out of the two releases that came out at the same time this EP is probably the more minimalistic, but choosing between the album and EP is both unwise and unnecessary: just get both releases. Because while everything seems to move forward in increasing pace, Kêres stoically continues to do what it knows best: creating stripped down Black Metal rooted with its heart and soul into the very beginnings of the genre.