Artist: Kêres
Country: Finland
Label: Final Agony / Vermines Pestifera
Formats: LP
Year: 2025
Kêres fans rejoice! One year after the last sign of life, Atvar returns. ‘Skryer of the Lighthouse’ is the latest full-length, featuring ten songs spread over an LP and 7” that is presented to us by Final Agony and Vermines Pestifera.
While every Kêres album has its own twist of the formula, by now the core recipe of Kêres is clear: regressive Black Metal that combines the first wave vein of old Samael, the spirit of Beherit, the straightforwardness of Barathrum and the raw catchiness of early Darkthrone. On ‘Skryer of the Lighthouse’ this is once again combined with otherworldly cosmic keys and almost Heavy Metal melody and in that sense, the album is fairly in line with the previous full-length ‘Eidolon Abraxas’. At the same time, the sound of ‘Skryer of the Lighthouse’ is quite a bit less raw, although I wouldn’t exactly call it clean either. In the end, it’s the atmosphere of the latest album that sets it apart.
While for instance opening track ‘Riding Storm’ still harbors a strong sense of melancholic unease, as a whole ‘Skryer of the Lighthouse’ has a more open and yearning atmosphere. This is accompanied by a pace that is predominantly low to midtempo, with songs like ‘Static Dance’ and ‘Dawn Fades to a Harpocrates Song‘ highlighting the stronger emphasis on atmosphere of the record. In a track like ’Hazed Monolith‘ the melodies are rather melodious, and almost creep towards traditional Folk melodies. But before it may sound as if Kêres has turned the tide completely, it’s good to take it one step back and realise: this is all within the rather narrow frame of what the band represents. A great example is a track like ‘Pluton’, that has all the bareboned riffs, bellowing vocals and eerie notes that are so recognisable about the band. Songs like ‘Starvation Rules a War Against Time’ or ‘Heimdallr’ add a good dose of ferocity to the record, while album closer ‘Water’ is pretty much what you could call a typical Kêres song, purely aimed at delivering simple but oh so effective and catchy Black Metal. And in the shape of ‘Unremovable’ Atvar delivers what could be his grandest piece of work, a song with all the typical Kêres riffs combined with atonal twisted melodies and odd rhythmic variations.
If anything, ‘Skryer of the Lighthouse’ is another testimony of how much you can do within a limited framework. Instantly recognisable, yet a little bit different than the rest of the discography. What stands out once again is that Kêres simply always sounds like Kêres: regressive Finnish Black Metal based around the power and simplicity of the riff. Indeed, Kêres fans rejoice!
