KVELERTAK Nattesferd CD (2016)

Norwegian bands have a habit of making music that sounds like it was recorded inside a burning longhouse, and Kvelertak lean into that harder than almost anyone working in the overlap between black metal, hardcore, and straight-up rock and roll.

"Nattesferd" is their third album and the first without Erlend Hjelvik on vocals, which made a lot of people nervous until they actually heard it. What came out was a record that doubled down on the owl-mascot, Motörhead-worship, Turbojugend-adjacent chaos that made the first two albums so disorienting in the best way. The whole thing is sung entirely in Norwegian, which somehow makes it feel more correct, not less. Equal parts punk fury and heavy metal grandiosity, it sits perfectly at the intersection of everything ALT CVLT is about, dark, loud, unbothered, and completely its own thing.

Format: CD Digipak, full length album. Released 2016. Country of origin: Norway. Genre: Heavy Metal/Punk/Hardcore.

Fans of: Baroness, Kylesa, Mastodon, Enslaved, Frd Fang, Turbonegro.