Kult Ofenzivy – Nauky různic
This one needed to sit in the head awhile, but not for the usual sitting reasons. It’s not a ‘grower’, as some say, it wasn’t something of the “different than their last one” variety, either. This is one that to any reviewer with an affection for black metal will most likely seem to be something of the ‘kvlt’, that despised word that means death, permaban, getting rekt, and various things around here. Such a term carries infinite weakness on two levels. First, to be dubbed ‘kvlt’ is a death-sentence for anything in the underground, it’s a term that once released from its obscure shackles became just as novel as saying ‘cheers’ when you’re not even from Britain. The further ‘kvlt’ became removed from the true underground, the less it meant, which leads us further. Second, any reviewer who dubs something as ‘kvlt’ is placing an interpretation upon an album or band that either reveals their tendency to analyze anything in black metal as either underground or not underground enough. Even worse it reveals a lack of understanding of all levels of an album under analysis. To use the word ‘kvlt’ for anything less than criticizing something for lacking in obscurity is proof of a shortage of knowledge of the real underground.
Such terms as ‘kvlt’ have been used for Kult Ofenzivy, in fact they hint at it in their own band name, or so you think if you’re a fool. Let’s first eliminate that line of reasoning, because these esoteric scribes of black metal are from the Czech Republic, and ‘kult’ does not mean ‘kvlt’ in Czech, it means ‘a cult’. So there’s the end to that line of reasoning. Next, the oh-so-simple-and-obvious reference to Transilvanian Hunger that will immediately come to mind to any black metal fan listening to this is pure falsity. You must avoid such pretense, because though black metal has certain, basic attributes you expect, and similarities of course, this is merely a point of reference, not a definition, especially in the case of Nauky různic. The point is simple, avoid the kvlt, it’s never good for you, it poisons your ability to think objectively about black metal, or thanks to Cvlt Nation (legitimate \m/ ), creates a sense of false front, where what you think is denied. The disease of ‘kvlt’ needs to end, please.
Because if you come into Nauky různic with that horrid word in your head and everything it entails, you’re already too biased to understand. You’re like a skinhead who’s been born into racism and can’t see anything else until they face a mortality crisis. Remove the bias, think before you begin. When this one starts to spin its tremolo chording and assaulting drums sound like something you’ve heard before, but are they? Black metal it most certainly is, but the real treat here is the lyrical presentation. If you know Russian or another Slavic language, it’s possible to pick through the Czech to figure some of it out, suffice to say it’s incredibly philosophical in nature. In fact, after listening to a few minutes of it, even without understanding the words, you should notice the way the vocals are presented is quite different, and then the music behind it makes more sense than it did as simply a definition of ‘kvlt’. The delivery is like oration, as though you’re experiencing a lecture, being instructed on the decline of the human race. This is how the entirety of Nauky různic works. On the surface, it sounds like the usual, but when the vocals appear, you realize it’s something else entirely, and the music which you previously defined in one way takes on new form. The only mistake of Kult Ofenzivy is they lack variety, this album’s like a poetic couplet of hate that never changes rhyme pattern, it’s an endless continuation. That may be part of the point, but they also keep themselves so esoteric that without a full translation of the lyrics for most it’s only the sound that remains. In the future, hopefully they’ll find a way to overcome these obstacles, but kvlt it most certainly is not.
Kult Ofenzivy Official Facebook
Written by Stanley Stepanic
Kult Ofenzivy – Nauky různic
Iron Bonehead Productions, Deathgasm Records
4.2 / 5
