Konvent - Call Down The Sun

Konvent return with their second full-length offering this week, via Napalm Records. A dismal, downtrodden and destitute collection of material, the quartet draw from sludge, black metal, death metal and doom to create a cold, thick smog of heaviness, maintaining its intensity from the first minute to the last. It's another great effort from the Danish dames; not for the faint of heart, but incredibly rewarding for those that can stomach such an aural assault.

Opening with a tolling bell, Rikke's first guttural roar in 'Into The Distance' lets you know without question that Konvent are back and with a vengeance. The pounding drums in the background build up tension, sending chills down your spine and creating a true feel of an epic album opener before it drops with a slight drop in tempo that's supremely effective and punishing. The song is mostly quite slow and foreboding, but Konvent cleverly switch up the tempo again towards the end - this time, making for a faster finale that adds another layer of intensity and sheer force. 'Sand Is King' utilises a single rhythmic idea for the most part, clever in its simplicity but with a sense of power that's truly primal. Julie brings in double-bass kicks from time to time to hammer the intensity home, but the slow tempo maintains Konvent's own character and really allows the snare drum to reverberate, sounding absolutely huge in the process. When they do alternate to more of a 'straight beat', it contorts your face for you. The whole thing is ugly as hell.

'In The Soot' opens with a droning guitar riff, gradually leading into a verse introduced by a frighteningly demonic growl from Rikke. Konvent keep the listener engaged throughout by changing the tempo to alternate the sense of intensity. Lead single 'Grains' then introduces an openly blackened approach in the guitar playing above a neck-snapping drum groove. The chord sequence and voicings give it an epic feel, and the shifts in key mantain the flow of the track. Around two-thirds of the way in, a breakdown smashes through the speakers, feeling absolutely earth-shattering in its slowness, and over the last minute or so, the drums cut out completely, generating a very mournful-sounding epilogue. Rikke sings in both English and Danish in 'Grains', stating that some of the lines 'made sense' to sing in her mother tongue in an interview elsewhere (read the whole thing here).

'Fatamorgana' follows on nicely from 'Grains', with its epic, blackened death/doom character. It has its own identity, but by not sounding a million miles away from the song follows, it's well-placed on the album. A chilling bass intro and spoken word tape leads into a drone-heavy dirge and a standout vocal performance from Rikke, showing off her low and high range nicely. The brief 'Interlude' then offers brief respite from the unrelenting heaviness, but the air is still thick with gloom, feeling ice-cold and almost industrial at times. It drops into 'Never Rest', with drums that sound like a funeral march as it announces itself. It grinds away slowly, another great example of Konvent's ability to build dense atmosphere with musical ideas that don't sound overly convoluted. The simpler approach to the instrumentation effectively lulls you into a trance over its runtime, before it fades out gracefully.

'Pipe Dreams' picks up the pace - by Konvent's standards, we're not quite talking grindcore speeds here, of course - but in a way that injects a bit of energy into the tail end of the record. The guitar playing has a nice, sludgy quality to it and the swaggering drums make it a real headbanger. One of the album's best riffs comes around the halfway mark. Its ugliness, combined with a half-time feel, makes you gurn and grimace, but Konvent seem to tease the listener by only briefly using it a couple of times, keeping it short but sweet. 'Harena', the album's longest song, closes the record. It's more melodic, compared to the preceding all-out brutality, but retains the intense sense of atmosphere. Featuring haunting violin and cello from Felix Havstad, it's a striking conclusion to Call Down The Sun. It seems that any less cinematic than this wouldn't be appropriate. Konvent pull out all the stops and dial up the sense of epic to deliver a piece that employs the beauty of black metal, the crushing heaviness of doom and the wide-eyed ambition of prog for a masterful finale. 

Sara pulls out a tasteful, melodic guitar solo over the final song - the only one on the record. It's the only place a lead guitar section would be needed. The instrumentalists in Konvent do away with flashiness in favour of serving a purpose, although several passages that may appear simple on a surface level have many layers to unlock by the listener. Konvent use changes in tempo and rhythm to keep the songs full of life, interest and energy, that only really become apparent under close attention. Another thing I missed the first couple of times is the way that Heidi's bowel-shaking bass tone is the real heart of the record, beefing the mix up to a new dimension. The record is very well-produced and brings a more 'classic' style forward with all the benefits of a modern studio. In any case, Sara, Heidi and Julie mesh well as a unit, placing atmosphere and songcrafting at the forefront of their approach. Konvent sound like a careful, deliberate, well-oiled machine.

Of the four-piece, it's likely Rikke's vocals that will gather the most individual attention. The restraint exercised by Rikke's bandmates allows her to really command the front of the mix. Sure, the vocals are brutal and bleak, but her wide range of harsh vocals would be enviable for any metal frontperson, executed better than most of her (male) peers could hope to. Again, though, she complements the blistering music behind her incredibly well and her death metal vocals are well-suited to this collection of songs. She owns it at the front without unnecessarily taking focus away from the other three.

Compared to Puritan Masochism (which I reviewed for MMH Radio back in 2020 at this link), Call Down The Sun evolves the band with a colder, denser overall sound. The last album certainly had its sense of epic, but Konvent take this sense of grandiosity to the next level and push this element even further on Call Down The Sun. My favourite Konvent track is still 'Idle Hands' - maybe along with the rest of that first album, there are songs present with a greater sense of immediacy - but Call Down The Sun is a piece of work that undeniably gets better with every listen, demanding the listener to come back for more. The album structure is very well-thought out and overall, this record sees Konvent go up a gear as artists.

Apocalyptic, and essential.

9/10

Call Down The Sun will be released by Napalm Records on 11th March 2022

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