Kvelertak, Loviatar, Dead Air Republic and Four-Stroke @ Mavericks
Six-piece Norwegian punk-metal band Kvelertak absolutely blew me away Sunday night in Ottawa.
Combine the power and raw energy of punk and hardcore with the depth of metal (helps having three guitarists) and have it led by a shirtless Norwegian bear of a man as a singer, and you have Kvelertak (pronounced something like Kuh-vell-er-tack – meaning stranglehold).
I am embarrassed to admit I had never heard of this Scandinavian powerhouse until my friend Matt Claude told me we had to go to their show at Mavericks. The band has been around for seven year, has over 110,000 fans on Facebook, are currently touring North-America opening for Mastodon, and more importantly – they kick ass.
Lead singer, Erlend Hjelvik, came onto the stage with his trademark owl helmet with glowing eyes as the band started to play. He only wears the helmet for the first song, but the images stays with you for the entire set. All their lyrics are in Norwegian, and even though I generally cherish lyrics over all other elements of music, they had me hooked from the very first song. With the amount of energy and excitement songs like “Blodtørst,” “Mjød,” and their anthem “Kvelertak” can evoke without me understanding a single word, it just goes to show how captivating they really are. They also made one of the coolest and most fun music videos I have seen in a long time, check out “Bruane Brenn.”
What also impressed me was that they spent their off day from touring with Mastodon in some pretty big venues to come make a stop in Ottawa at Mavericks (maybe 300 capacity?). It paid off, as they brought in a huge crowd on a Sunday and had a great group of fans singing and thrashing around. I don’t know if I will ever get a chance to see them again, but I am certainly glad I did. KVELERTAK, KVELERTAK, KVELETAK.
Three Ottawa band were tasked with opening the night, Loviatar, Dead Air Republic, and Four-Stroke. First up was Four-Stroke – a punk rock band, who I unfortunately missed due to Mother’s Day supper. Sorry guys, mom wins this round but I am sure I will catch you again soon. Next up was Dead Air Republic. The band might have been misbilled, but they did not seem to care, as they looked to be having a good time and giving it their all. Fronted by lead singer Marc Bourgon, also of Iconoclast, the band played a set full of guitar solos and rock ‘n’ roll. Heavier sounding and a little more raw than Iconoclast, the song that stood out for me was Example One. It was the heaviest song of their set with some cool melodies.
Lastly before Kvelertak took the stage, Ottawa doom-metal quartet Loviatar rocked us. They reminded me of early ISIS, a band I truly love, with their gloomy spacey sounds and vocal clashing with really heavy riffs. Check out their new EP Druid’s Curse to see what I mean. Another cool thing about them was that their guitarist and lead vocalist JD is a long time sound man around town. I have seen him doing sound for what seems like easily over a decade, so it was really neat to see him on the other side of things.