Almost one year after Krvna‘s fantastic debut album “Sempinfernus” has been dissected here on Scrolls, the Australian one man band crawls out again of its remote grave with the sophomore album “For Thine is the Kingdom of the Flesh“. This new record will come out on the 12th of December as a joint coop between the Polish labels Third Eye Temple and Ancient Dead Prod. For more details about pre-orders and available album versions, you can check the links in this article.
With the new record, mastermind Krvna Vatra Smrt has decided to walk on the same vampiric path (both musically and stylistically) as the previous album, only that now the songs are even more aggressive (and maybe longer) that before. With a total span of 43 minutes, “For Thine…” is a truly majestic album which takes you again on a journey in times immemorial, where myth, folklore and religion intertwine.
“Beyond the borders, beyond life and death
Beyond the forests, beyond life’s last breath“
The very first thing that caught my eye when reading the record’s press release was the astonishing album cover created by Greallach, which immediately made me imagine that something extremely wrong happened during The Last Supper. Going through the lyrics as I prepared for this review I realized how well the cover fits with the whole vampiric concept of this record. To be honest, after buying this record I will stare at its cover for hours, as this is for sure one of the most disturbing paintings I have ever seen (at least recently) . But let’s go deeper…
The title track opens the album in a rather innocently way with an orthodox choir of angelic voices which is abruptly cut short by a barrage of riffs and a horrific scream that sets the tone for the upcoming onslaught. This relentless tempo, which is the backbone of the record, attacks your senses with an assault of cold, piercing riffs and hellish blast beats, only to be skillfully interrupted by beautiful acoustic and melodic passages that help enhance the morbid atmosphere. Krvna Vatra‘s malicious vocals spew forth black blood and bile, creating a gruesome painting of bloodthirsty creatures coming to life. Out of the 6 songs that appear on the track list, “Gethsemane Ablaze” is taken off the band’s very first release, the excellent demo tape “Long Forgotten Relic” (2021), thus maintaining a link between the “now” and the not so distant “then“.
A lot of the elements that have made “Sempinfernus” such a good album have been used again on “For Thine…“, (acoustic guitars, piano and mid tempo, double bass passages) but I also mustn’t forget those melancholic guitar solos that simply tear you to shreds (ex: “The Flaming Hordes of Basarab“, “In the Absence of Gods…“, “…Death Shall Have no Dominion“). This duality between aggression and melody, between frenzied blast beats and atmospheric mid tempos, has become a trademark of Krvna‘s style, setting it aside from other bands in the genre. The band’s musical evolution has been swift and obvious, and I am eager to see how things will look for Krvna in the future.
Many times in the past I have stumbled upon albums who had one or two outstanding tracks, while the rest of the songs were almost mediocre fillers. But this has not happened with Krvna, neither on the debut album nor on its follow up. So even if the songs are long, complex and (in a way) different from one another, they fit perfectly as a whole and create an amazingly coherent record. I see Krvna‘s music as a portal through which bloodthirsty creatures from the underworld come forth to haunt and feed on their unsuspecting victims. These creatures are the songs themselves, the lyrics and the music their fangs and claws with which they bite and tear you to pieces. Can you endure it ?
“Come thou contemplate forever
And lurk in firmament lupine
Commit to ghastly acts of horror
Consume in extremis, sanguine“
KRVNA – “For Thine is the Kingdom of the Flesh” Track list:
1. For Thine is the Kingdom of the Flesh
2. Gethsemane Ablaze
3. Veni, Vidi, Vici
4. The Flaming Hordes of Basarab
5. In The Absence of Gods…
6. …Death Shall Have no Dominion
Band Links:
https://krvna.bandcamp.com/releases
scrollsofdarmoth.com 
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