Keep of Kalessin

Live at The House of Blues

Hollywood, California

November 26th, 2011

Review and Photos by Travis Baumann

Still rolling strong on their titanic release, "Reptilian", Keep of Kalessin return to North America as opening act for Black Metal legends, Mayhem.

Started in Norway by Obsidian C., Keep of Kalessin come with the pedigree of having their founder's resume including playing guitar for scene titans, Satyricon and have put out a number of great albums under the Keep of Kalessin moniker.

Their greatest achievement to date however, is their latest master piece telling the tales of awakening dragons and the power of the towers erected in their name. A dragon cult in essence, is what this album signifies and I for one am all in.

They started the set with "Kolossus" off of the previous album of the same name, and got the crowd into a moshing frenzy. Their style is definitely a splinter of Black Metal but their subject matter borders into Power Metal and their stylings are unique and cross many boundaries.

Their second song of the set is one of my all time favorites, "The Awakening" . It is, besides "The Dragontower", their ultimate magnum opus, and plays part of the dragon worship saga that is painted by the "Reptilian" album.

It is an epic tale that is over eight minutes long and spins the mystery and power of the arch-dragon (which they take the name from, Kalessin is the name of the arch-dragon from the Earthsea saga of books).

The vocals are varied throughout as well. The song has a religious-like manifesto with the resounding chant-like chorus "Hail! Dragon! Majesty! Grant us Power!"

Sticking with the new material they did the mighty "Judgement" as it flows on the album straight out of "The Awakening". This concert was showcasing their latest release perfectly so far, and it would get even better.

They proceeded to do "Dragon Iconography". This song is another one of the best things they have ever done. It really builds in intensity with an atmospheric introduction that just blasts into a ferocious guitar and percussion attack.

They continued the onslaught with even more new material from "Reptilian" with "Dark as Moonless Night" and the amazing "The Divine Land", two songs rich in mood and atmosphere as well as sophisticated story-telling lyrically.

I wish they had a lot more time to do the entire album but they were relegated to a shorter set so they only had one more for us. They chose to go back to the "Kolossus" album for the final song and gave us "Ascendant", a nice brutal piece to leave the crowd with.

I love Keep of Kalessin, this is my third time seeing them live and I really never get enough of their epic, symphonic Black Metal style. The "Reptilian" album easily ranks up there with my favorite extreme metal albums of all time.

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