Karg announce new album by premiering a first song
Karg guitarist/vocalist J.J. may be better known as the frontman for Austrian post-black duo Harakiri for the Sky (who released new full-length Arson earlier this year), but he’s been with Karg for even longer, since 2006. Their latest effort is new album Dornenvögel, and today Decibel has an exclusive listen to new song Petrichor.
Petrichor is a bright slab of atmospheric black metal, leaving plenty of room for the music to breathe. It also features a guest spot from L.G. of Ellende, adding another layer of raw, emotional vocals.
J.J. says:
“This song is about going to a place I always thought I’d go if there’d be nothing left at home for me worth staying, I always thought I’d go there, to leave it all behind. And so I did. But at least it was not about a farewell or leaving, but about a new chapter of life, or to say it in a quite pathetic way, a rebirth. This led to kinda mixed feelings. On the one hand you have this euphoric and exalted feelings, experiencing life in the back of beyond, thousands of kilometers away from all that trouble. And on the other hand, you must realize after a few days of euphoria, that you can’t stay forever and have to leave for home a more soon than faraway day. The past, death and all these negative feelings will get you everywhere, in this case even at the end of this fucking world.”
For the new record, Karg mastermind J.J. (vocalist of Harakiri For The Sky) recruited a flood of notable musicians as guests on the record, including members from Lunar Aurora, Downfall of Gaia, Ellende, Ancst, Amer, fut and Instant Karma to participate with guest vocals on the album.
Dornenvögel is the project’s most diverse album written to date. It’s a steady up and down of negative and melancholic feelings and short glimpses of hope, recited in a quite hysteric way. Every song is a separate, private “Dornenvogel” (which is a metaphor in this connection) to Karg, in which every song is a different chapter and collection of dramas, one followed by the other.
Karg was founded back in the summer of 2006 as a one-man project. Between 2010 and 2014 Karg was fully formed as a band to play gigs, formally in Germany, Austria and Central Europe. In the years leading to 2018, Karg was a one-man project and released two previous albums. Karg’s 6th studio album Dornenvögel marks the project’s rebirth as a live band for a few special dates in 2018 and 2019.
The musical style of Karg is a furious, hysteric mixture of atmospheric black metal and post-rock, with influences also from grunge, shoegaze and post-punk. Lyrically, Karg was always about the more melancholic side of life, such as broken relationships, lost love, estrangement, drug abuse, loss or suicidal thoughts and depression. In contrast to many other bands Karg’s lyrics are as equally important as its music.
Dornenvögel will see release through AOP Records on November 16.
