Artist: Kadavrik
Title: N.O.A.H.
Type: Album
Label: Sonic Attack Records

It's quite easy to know that their record label has the right name for what Kadavrik deliver. Niklas Preach's vocals on "Legacy" are a combination of aggressive and melodic with a great choral arrangement on the chorus complemented by the keyboards for added ambience. Preach and Chris Boss' guitar sound is clear, allowing for every riff and speed change to be perfectly audible but as "Adiposit Obstipation" testifies, as heavy as one would expect from a melodic death metal band with black metal undercurrents. For instance the ultrafast kick drum click used by Frank The Tank on "Dream And Vision" is pure black metal, while the guitars and vocals are more melodic death metal in their timbre, while "High Rollin'" has black metal vocal rasps accompanied by melodic clean ones over the airy keyboards played by (Hateful) Han Of Hate.

"Between Ecstasy And Lethargy" has a steady kick click, flowing keyboards and very staccato guitar riffs with some fast tremolo picking when they want to increase the feel of speed on the song. At first I thought it sounded like they were playing a marimba on "Marae", but it turned out to be a very processed guitar with Oliver Rude's occasional fuzzy bass powering through on this instrumental track. "Let My Blood Boil Tonight" has the upbeat tempo and happy guitar sound of Gothenburg-Death metal, which I'm sure shall make this a great track for gigs as the crowd can easily get into and jump (off the roof).

Unfortunately for me the concept part of this album is the last four tracks which happen to be sung completely in German, thereby robbing me of the pleasure of the story they tell. Starting with pianoforte on the very atmospheric "Rußgeschwärzt", the crescendo slowly builds up tempo and once it reaches its forte it sustains it with brash vocals 'til it slowly diminuendos back to piano. "Von Zerstörung Und Neuanfang" has background violins and piano under the pounding drums and chugging guitar, then it breaks down to acoustic guitar which becomes a lead solo and extremely fast tremolo guitar over black metal vocals. Slowing things down and increasing the moodiness 'til all hell breaks loose, "Die Flut Sind Wir" ebbs and flows in this manner throughout the song. Powerful piano chords are being played simultaneously to the intricate guitar riffs on "Tragödie", as it nears the end it all becomes a little abstract and disjointed 'til it gets everything together again to quietly end the album.

http://www.kadavrik.com

Marco Gaminara

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