It’s no secret that I absolutely love Kavrila. But until now, in my previous reviews about their work, I’ve never quite explained how this romance began! With the re-release of their latest EP, comes the perfect opportunity to look back at this tortured relationship I have with my former neighbors from the north of Germany.
I discovered the raw little gem that is Kavrila while I used to live in Hamburg, during a spectacular 1000Mods gig at the Knust. The opening act? A local band whose stickers I’d already seen on the doors of the bunker where I rehearsed for a while. Naively, I was expecting some fairly conventional stoner rock. Instead, I was hit right in the gut with a massive dose of violence and nihilism. I’ll admit, it did not fit with the wave of coolness we got for the rest of the evening, but the very next day, I started an in-depth listening of “Rituals I,” “Rituals II,” their first two EPs, and “Blight,” their debut album.
I’ve been hooked since then. On their end, three EPs, two albums, a few all too rare shows in Teutonia, and finally my favorite representatives of dark German sludge are back after years of waiting. They’re offering us the first act of a new trilogy of EPs with “Heretics I.”
To truly comprehend Kavrila, one has to understand what it’s like to spend eight months a year in the rain and the cold, to live in the city that saw the emergence of the Beatles but is constantly pushed into the cultural shadows of its neighbor Berlin. A city whose working-class neighborhoods can host Germany’s biggest squat and political asylum, with the Röte Flora, the progressive FC St. Pauli club, street art everywhere, and rock shows all the time, including the world festival of Turbojugends. But it’s also a city where the political leaders are replacing these same neighborhoods by building new and super posh areas, and which is home to Europe’s most expensive classical concert hall, the Elbphilharmonie. An ultra-prosperous yet ultra-divided city whose elitism among the wealthy is matched only by the brightness of the sun reflecting off the inland lake (the Alster), while its working classes bear the brunt of an alienating German economic policy.
Creating music in Hamburg means rejecting the festive and psychedelic side of Berlin to better confront the harshness of life, in all its shades of gray, as most of the band’s album covers demonstrate. It’s always about having a DIY aesthetic and a desire to play uncompromising, nihilistic, and powerful music, without wanting to push away its various influences, including the cheesiest ones (yes, yes, we see you Germans trying to throw a little kitschy heavy metal everywhere). In this context, it’s no surprise that post-hardcore and sludge have had such a strong impact on the city and that a band at the crossroads of these genres emerges, as Kavrila has.
To embrace its punk background, Kavrila has turned up all the knobs even further than ever before with “Heretics I”. Recorded entirely on an old 4-tracks, there’s no room for frills here. One track for the guitar, one for the bass, one for the full drum kit, and one for the vocals. That’s it. The result is of rare power and intensity, smashing our heads with this grungy lo-fi feel along these riffs and guitar leads still firmly rooted in post-hardcore. Quite frankly, it sounds like an old black metal album, if black metalheads knew how to write sophisticated songs. The vocals are primarily screamed, as always, but with a single take to record the entire EP, the vulnerability of the vocal cords has never been more present. At any point, any moment, the voice could break and everything would stop. And if you know a better definition of sludge music than this, I’m all ears!
Four tracks in just under fifteen minutes, and it starts “pedal to the metal”. We’re first captivated by this mix, which, despite its simplicity, allows all the instruments to sit in their own space. It begins with “Embers” in the purest post-hardcore tradition with its shouted lyrics. The sumptuous segue on the ride into the very moody and grungy “Chains” is a feast for the ears. Yet, your eardrums are quickly assaulted by dissonant and dark guitar leads. “Petrified” is the most punk and fastest track on the EP, but its 100% dissonant bridge gives it a very noise rock aura. Finally, there’s “Ascend,” which adds a pleasant touch of doom sludge and post-metal to the already diverse list of influences. Can’t you hear a bit of Brutus on this track?
Kavrila opens a new chapter with this new trilogy. Always forging their own path without worrying about trends or habits, constantly questioning their practices without ever questioning their art itself, the band continues to shine with its authenticity and the infectious intensity of their production. “Heretics” is written in the plural form and I can embrace the fact that we are all mad men, as long as we can enjoy this soundtrack during our mental breakdown.
ARTISTE: Kavrila
ALBUM: Heretics I
RELEASED: 28 MArch 2025
GENRE: Sludge punk
LABEL: Supreme Chaos Records
MORE: Bandcamp
Last modified: 15 April 2025
