(03.14.09) Svarte Greiner’s Knive is undoubtedly one of the Type label’s flagship releases. At the time of its release there had been very little other material released that matched it for pure, spine-tingling horror. Since then, a small sub-genre of “doom-ambient” has emerged, led by the likes of Xela and Svarte Greiner, with a little help from Skodvin’s own Miasmah label along the way. What is actually quite surprising is that there is a real market for this twisted sub-genre, and it is fascinating to see just how far some artists are prepared to take it.
Greiner’s new album Kappe – a four track affair spanning forty-odd minutes – makes Knive seem like children’s television by comparison, its haunted wails and thinly-veiled, charnel-house sound effects seeming almost cartoonish in comparison.
“Tunnel of Love” operates on the same level as many a great horror movie: we know there is something at the end of that tunnel… we know we shouldn’t listen to that voice calling us in… we know we should turn back, run away and never return. But we don’t. “Tunnel of Love” is a coiled mass of obfuscation and deception. The haunted and oddly beautiful succubus’ call that wails from its depths is wreathed in tinkling chimes… or is that the rattle of chains? Are those screams, or the scraping of metal on… something? Is that roaring the sound of machinery, or the blaze of a furnace? One is compelled to seek out the source in spite of a growing sense of dread.
What we come across in “Where Am I” is a shadowy, gore-spattered chamber in which a guitar is being mercilessly tortured. Stab after searing stab of agonized guitar wails are deliberately and meticulously extracted from the instrument in cold and calculated fashion, its screams becoming ever more guttural and protracted as the ordeal unfolds.
“Candle Light Dinner Actress” carries the harrowing narrative line still further, an insane whooping cry heard in its opening moments issuing from the dank tunnels, opening onto chambers full of the rotting carcasses of familiar but decayed instruments/instrumentation. Any concession to musicality vanishes in these hellish sixteen minutes; the disturbing ordeal reflected upon in the dying eddies and saw-drones of “Last Light.”
Kappe has the same damned soul and cursed spirit as Knive, but someone has ripped out its spectral, black heart along the way leaving a charred and mutilated husk, the forensic details of which will be pored over by a fascinated, esoteric few. For those that glean enjoyment from these dark and twisted indulgences, Kappe contains exceptionally skilled and intelligently crafted vessels leading to a grim, bleak underworld. As for the rest of you, are you willing to take that journey?
Kappe is out now on Type. [Listen / Purchase
