Review by Sandre the Giant
A new band from the fertile and always interesting Dutch scene is Knekelput, a black/death metal band who love to experiment with some chaotic weird stuff. Their deubt record, ‘Teloorgang’, looks to put them on everyone’s radar, and it is out at the end of October through Bandcamp.
Opener ‘Totale Atrofie van Lichaam en Geest’ gives you a perfect taster for the convulted, serpentine carnage that is to come in a less than three minute burst. Savage atonal death metal swoops and writhes within eerie atmospherics, leading into the gloomy hauntings of ‘Dualiteit’ where Gorgutsian death metal fights with smothering black metal atmospherics for position. There’s so many obvious points of reference; the uncomfortable brutality of Ulcerate in the fiery ‘Waan’, the black anarchy and regal uneasiness of prime Deathspell Omega seeping through ‘Maalsteen’, even touches of post metal in the glorious opening tones of ‘Utopie’. You’ll never expect the next track, the next section of a song even; Knekelput keep you guessing throughout. There’s a number of weird interludes too, just to keep you on your toes; the discordant 80s video game noises of ‘Vormen’, the always welcome drone of a didgeridoo on ‘Kwartententoonstelling’, nothing is what you expect it to be.
‘Teloorgang’ is an uncomfortable, challenging record that has so many high points that you can’t afford to miss out on it. Unconscionably heavy in places, with a real knack for getting their riffs into the darkest and most uneasy crevices, Knekelput would have struggled to write anything better as a first release. ‘Teloorgang’ isn’t a record I’m soon going to forget..
https://knekelputband.bandcamp.com/
The Killchain 