Rising from such a hotbed of extreme metal talent, Helsinki based five piece Khiral have utilised an abundance of influences throughout their decade long career. Evolving from the hardcore inspired rock style that they displayed from their inception back in 2008, the band have gradually built a sound that encompasses an abundance of ideas and directions to create something of their own. After all those years and several significant lineup changes, January 2018 saw the release of their debut album, Chained on Inverse Records.
Have a listen: https://khiralband.com/music/
Opening mysteriously with a slow building clean passage reminiscent of Testament, Khiral opt to showcase their strengths in syncopation and intricate chord work as the bass leads the charge towards the main body of the album. With a past soaked in modern hardcore influence, it's obvious that these traits and techniques are tightly weaved into the band's composition style, focusing more on rhythmic groove as a unit than on individual spotlight on any member. The tight modern production emphasises the power of the dual guitars, the punchy bass and the clinical precision of the drums into a well balanced product akin to Machine Head or Chimaira with the aggression of Slayer setting it closer to the old school from a composition standpoint. Breakdowns are scattered tastefully in certain parts, avoiding the common issue of over repetition that is prevalent in a lot of these so called 'crossover' acts (not meaning the subgenre).
Although traditional guitar leads are notably missing, there are numerous repeated patterns, Machine Head-esque harmonics and even dissonant notes akin to those of Andreas Kisser at times, accentuating the underlying heaviness. To me, the death metal influences seem to stem from the more melodic part of the subgenre, feeling more in common with In Flames or even later Edge of Sanity than with 'Left Hand Path' era Entombed. This is most evident in tracks like Lichen and Orphanage that employ similar trilled guitar parts and even short burst blastbeat sections. Apart from these short flurries of intensity, the drums seem rather solid and focused on maintaining a strong backbone for the others. The band hints at taking inspiration from black metal but I cant see much of an example of this on this album personally.
Vocally, there seems to be a good mix of low guttural growls (quite similar to Dan Swano) and the high shrieks soaring above the organised chaos below. Perhaps most interesting are the percussive vocal melodies, the clean vocalisation at the beginning of Lichen and the gang vocals on Chokehold of Shame suggesting quite how far their range of inspirations lie. With this in mind, I think that the weird clean vocals at the beginning of Ultraviolent are a bit unusual and perhaps a little too jarring for me.
It's relatively hard to pick flaws with this release as it attempts to meld together two distinctly different (and often detested) styles that often clash. However, I feel that it's intelligently homogenised into a very listenable experience. That being said, I dont think that they have labelled themselves correctly as death/thrash as they have far more to offer from other styles while also not providing enough to just be thrash or death metal (labelling themselves is something that they admit to finding difficult). One distinct flaw of Chained is the abrupt ending that leaves the whole release feeling unfinished or possibly demanding a finale worthy of it's superb beginning.
Although initially advertised as a thrash/death metal band, I found that Khiral provided something more new school than what I had imagined from Finnish Death metal (such as Convulse, Purtenance, Abhorrence or Demilich), opting for a cleaner production and more modern metal techniques while often paying homage to some of the classics throughout. The past 10 years of evolution have certainly given the band an opportunity to consider how best to progress as a more unique entity. Each track has a sense of identity in itself, flowing well throughout the record as a melting pot of inspirations and ideas (some of which misfire but by and large, it's successful in it's aims). Altogether, a strong debut for the open minded, but may turn away those who dislike the obvious new school influences (breakdowns, etc).
7/10 - Reviewed by Matt