Kev Rowland Following on from the success of ‘Rough Times’, the stoner trio of Christoph ‘Lupus’ Lindemann (vocals, guitars), Christoph ‘Tiger’ Bartelt (drums) and Simon ‘Dragon’ Bouteloup (bass) of course hit the road, with their set at Pumpehuset in November 2017 being recorded and now released by Nuclear Blast. There are times when these guys feel as if they are a brutal force of nature, all tied together to produce shockwaves of sound. But this rather falls away when Lindemann goes into guitar solos, as there are too many times when one wishes they were a quartet instead of a trio, as they start to lose impact as the bass/drum combination isn’t heavy enough to keep it all going, no matter how distorted and fuzzed out the bass actually is. I hadn’t noticed this on the studio albums, but it is definitely a factor at times on this release.

When they allow themselves to play with countermelodies and interweaving sounds, such as on “The Old Man”, it shows that there is some delicacy and thought behind the hammer blows, but when it gets cranked and distorted then it feels far more primal. When the volume is right up, and they are blasting this out onstage then I am sure this is a band to be reckoned with, but for me this live album doesn’t really have the presence and power of the last few studio albums. Solid and often very enjoyable, but not essential.

Kev Rowland

Two years on and the trio are back proving that they fully understand their niche and feel no need whatsoever to move away from it. The slight change in the sound is that the bass has been given more prominence and a far richer sound, but apart from that it is another album straight from the Kadavar playbook, namely doom, psyche and hard rock with major influenced from the likes of Sabbath, Cream and Atomic Rooster. Somehow, they always manage to imbue the music with a vitality, a real energy, and it is this that really makes them standout from others following a similar musical journey. This album has moved them more into classic Sabbath territory than ‘Berlin’, but for someone who grew up cutting his teeth on those albums that’s never going to be a bad thing. But whereas many bands appear to emphasise the doom-laden riffs of that group, Kadavar never forget the need for balance, and this album comes across as refined and polished, as well as raw and grungy all at the same time.

This is their fourth studio album, and they continue to mine a rich vein of material, and although it may never be the most fashionable forms of metal, they are experts at what they do and it is of little surprise that their third release gained some chart success on both Germany and the States, and this one will do the same I’m sure. There is much here for any fan of the genre to really get their teeth and ears into.

Kev Rowland

The cover to the German trio’s third full-length studio album has a very Seventies feel about it, and the music on offer definitely belongs to the first part of that decade, if not earlier. But, given that the first two albums looked as if they belonged firmly in the Sixties, possibly the band are coming more up to date? By now bassist Simon ‘Dragon’ Bouteloup was fully ensconced in the band, having only contributed to a few songs on the previous album, joining Christoph ‘Lupus’ Lindemann (vocals, guitars) and Christoph ‘Tiger’ Bartelt (drums) in making a glorious sound that owes a great deal to the few years either side of 1970. The guitars are distorted when they need to be, or clean and fine at others, while the drums are solid and the bass moved between hitting a solid single note and going off at tangents.

Somehow the band manage to mix Cream, Black Sabbath, Atomic Rooster (although with no keyboards) and others in a celebration of bell-bottomed flares, long hair, and loud music that is exciting, invigorating and undoubtedly honest. This is music guaranteed to get the sweat running down the walls, and turn even the most svelte and sedate manner rocker into a greasy mess of hair and snot.

Music guaranteed to make lovers of the Seventies and Sixties smile, their version of doom, psyche and straight ahead hard rock is a joy from start to end. If you like the genre then this is essential, but if not then I suggest you pass quickly by while the rest of lose our dandruff.