Kvelertak Live In London: Owl Party

This man has an owl on his head. It’s clearly time to party.

Whores’ drawers, I fucking LOVE Kvelertak.

A little green of gill and somewhat gig-jaded, there was notable anti-anticipation around these parts as the clock ticked down towards time-to-get-off-my-arse o’clock.

You see the sour taste of The Sword remained and while High on Fire wobbled my jowls pleasingly with their vibrating air, the crowd carried the faintest whiff of dickhead.

Combine that with my suspicions around the unfamiliar venue – everything in Camden inherently veers towards shithole-status – and the stoke levels were minimal.

You know what’s coming though, don’t you? (Yeahh, I kind of gave it away in my intro. I need to learn to hold back, or so my wife keeps telling me anyway).

Sweet owly Jesus, Kvelertak are a one-of-a-kind instant motherfucking rock n’ roll party. Neck a few (double) magic juices, get yourself in the vicinity of the mosh and I triple-fucking-dare you not to have a blast, sporting a shit-eating grin all the while.

RIFF TROLLS

To save me repeating myself, you may as well read my review of last August’s Borderline gig. Bar a setlist reshuffle and an indeterminate number of new songs, this felt like a rerun of that rip-roaring balls-out funfest. Which is clearly No Bad Thing.

Outside of chemical-soaked raves in the mid 90s, I’ve rarely experienced anything so joyful. Several times, I threw my arm around another mosher’s shoulder, as we laughed and roared in brotherhood.

More than once, I span around in incredulous glee, almost losing my mind in the sheer awesome. 

His own face was melted by riffs. You gotta be careful kids.

Kvelertak are an utterly brilliant live act. The sheer exuberance is infectious. A plague of fun borne on the winds of the riff.

You gotta catch em while you can though. This was a bigger venue than last time, with a bigger stage and the band just that bit further away. So rather than mass stage diving from the band, we had a single leap from Erlend.

So while not quite the chaotic insanity of last time around, the set felt better paced and a smidgen tighter. The new material was slipped in seamlessly and with little fanfare, which is fitting given the new album’s title (Meir simply means “More”).

Given the rampant popularity of my last original clip, here is another brilliant shit video from the midst of the mosh. Check out Offernat in all its glory and imagine a drunken blogger jumping around when things get wobbly, which they sure as shit do.

Meir is out on March 26 in the UK and I am trying not to get too excited.

There’s just one more thing to add:

KVELERTAAAAAAAAAKKKKKKK!

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Pics are either my own or, if well composed and not shit, courtesy of the very talented LevitateMe on Flickr.