So we reach the climax of Rituals; a saga spanning five years and three EPs, beginning in 2016 via 2018 and culminating here in a desperately hopeful 2021. If you’re after something uplifting, like being vaccinated with a dose of positivity, you may want to look elsewhere as Kavrila deal in the darker recesses of the human mind. For the uninitiated, Kavrila are a four piece from Hamburg, Germany, who specialise in a form of doomy hardcore, but not exclusively so. Regarding the previous two chapters, Rituals I was a bulldozing juggernaut, a blur of punk metal that decimated all who dared listen, while Rituals II was somehow angrier, dirtier and grimier, both sounding like the Teutonic spawn of a Trap Them (R.I.P) and Converge one night stand. Regarding the finale, Rituals III, Kavrila have tweaked their sound again, encompassing a little from previous releases while simultaneously moving in different directions.
Opener ‘Sunday’ is a cracker; a restrained sombre guitar quietly starts proceedings before the tempo ratchets up considerably, the drums speeding along on a punk beat and the guitars spitting out chords. Alex Bujack screams depressing lyrics such as ‘supposed to be the best time, turns out to be the day I die’; referring to an anxiety attack he suffered, reminiscent in his delivery to Derek Archambault from Defeater. ‘Sunday’ did remind me of Defeater in many ways, not just the vocals, musically it’s very similar, using their form of emotional hardcore as a template. It’s fast, heavy and seething, but also contains plenty of melody and rock guitar solos. There’s no escaping those forlorn picked guitar notes that book end the track and appear again halfway through, like a lingering dread in the back of the mind that continually rears its head.
‘Equality’ is slower; a crunching riff driving it along, punk now replaced by straight up metal but there’s a healthy juxtaposition between melody and heaviness, which will get many a future pit moving. ‘Longing’ has a sound more akin to early Machine head and the slow posturing beatdowns of Biohazard, no doubt one for the slam dancers. It has a metalcore feel to it but still manages to shoehorn in a psychedelic widdly air guitar worthy solo. The EP ends with ‘Elysium’ which is a departure from where Rituals I and II finished and III began. The track is underpinned by a bluesy rock riff that grooves along like a cut-price Clutch, tension builds, guitar solos abound and the vocals rather irritatingly shout the word ‘Elysium’ over and over. The track’s protagonist appears to leave this world in a state of peace, the anger and frustration replaced by something more content, which is echoed in the more subdued music.
Where the previous EPs had a genre or style running through, Rituals III tends to subtly change from track to track. There’s no doubt that when Rituals III ends Kavrila are some distance from where they began with ‘Pain’ from Rituals I. Depending on how diehard a Kavrila fan you are, you will either enjoy the diversity and progression or be irked by losing some of what you enjoyed in the first place. Kavrila’s forte is hardcore punk and Rituals III starts superbly, four tracks along the same lines as ‘Sunday’ would have been ideal. Unfortunately the further Kavrila stray from this, the more raw power and edge they lose, thus in isolation Rituals III fails to live up the high standards set previously. Nonetheless it’s a solid addition to the Rituals saga; the trilogy itself is an impressive and varied piece of progressive hardcore metal, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
(6/10 James Jackson)
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