Karg – Marodeur (Post-Artifice Blackened Gaze)
One of the greats of the Austrian post-black metal scene, Karg, has graced me with a wonderful promo featuring a running horsey and rider chasing in tow with a crop. If that doesn’t set the scene, you tell me what does. Lol, I kid. Karg, whose earlier work was primarily noteworthy for its progression in aesthetics, but just never enough for review status, have fashioned a far greater work with their latest full-length. Prior to Marodeur, Karg was wont to experiment with ambient avenues in black metal, tossing in a little post-whatever, but never could seem to create a substantial “idea” for their sound beyond a mere combination of things. One of the issues, in my opinion, was the large mixture of genres, such as shoegaze and post-punk, that lacked clarity in their combination. At times certain features would stand too separate from the rest, and it simply was incapable of revealing anything but a jumble of concepts swirled together in a way that might as well have been nonsense. Here, however, things are much different. Not just cohesive, but revolutionary even.
Let’s sound fancy today because Marodeur requires educated lingo. This one is a real pastiche of styles, but, finally, Karg unified it in a way that sounds unique, and not merely a mixture for the sake of or yet another post-add genre here because we find it difficult to fully define (that is also a potential error of many a band). Without delving too far into the genres present here, I’ve given two above, after all, the main feature here the sheer breadth of what they’ve created here. Karg prove their skill with ambitious, melancholic progressions, brought forth from anguish and turmoil, utilizing themes such as estrangement, betrayal, and all of the mistakes of human existence that have lead to the greatest forms of depression as aesthetic. Part of this accomplishment rests in their methods, with no particular element of Marodeur taking precedence over another. With the amount of emotional energy you’ll find, one would think that Karg would overextend their depth of feeling, but instead they utilize this to their advantage, providing ample ground for an extensive investigation into the roots of human frailty, which is a key feature of any post genre attempting to save itself from a history of striving for difference, forging ahead with fresh ideas, and vision, that never appear as artifice.
Written by Stanley, Devourer of Souls
Karg – Marodeur
AOP Records
Cover Art (Photography): Aleksandar Kos
4.5 / 5
