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Exclusive, Featured

EXCLUSIVE FULL ALBUM STREAM: KEEP OF KALESSIN’S REPTILIAN

 Friday, May 7th, 2010 at 1:00pm by

keep of kalessin - reptilian

I know I’ve been hyping Keep of Kalessin’s new album Reptilian ever since it was announced in January. And though my hype was based somewhat on the strength of the two advance songs from Reptilian that have been released to the world over the past few months, it was also largely based on the fact that I really liked their last album Kolossus and believed this band possessed something great inside of them that would work its way out with time.

And now that I’ve heard all of Reptilian I can say with 100% confidence that I was absolutely right; this band is fucking fantastic, and they’ve grown leaps and bounds since Kollosus (which was really good itself). Reptilian is a step up in every way: the songs are better, the arrangements and composition more intricate, the production crisper, the performance tighter. All it took was a taste of album-opener “Dragon Iconography” and I was already sold, but this album keeps delivering and delivering and delivering, song after song after song.

2010 is still young, but Reptilian is definitely making a case for inclusion on my year-end list. The album officially comes out on Monday, May 10th in Europe and not until June 8th in the U.S… but since the Internet exists, we’re streaming the whole thing for all the world to hear for an entire week, starting right now. Get to it.

-VN

[this promotion has ended]

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  • Rage

    YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

  • CHUMBAWUMBA

    Fuck yes!!! Love this band! thanks for this guys, your rule!

  • lord assenfart

    FUCK YES, FUCK YES FUCK YES. now i remember why i come to this site every fucking day, you guys just made my fucking weekend. i remember why i put my metal sucks sticker on my weed box. cause you fucking hook it up Keep of Kalessin fucking RULES!!!! FUCK YES !!!

    FUCK!

  • Shreddy_lee

    FUUUUCK YES!!!

  • Max

    Once again…

    FUCK YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Dre-Toledo/628955415 Dre Toledo

    BEST ALBUM OF 2010??

    • http://www.last.fm/user/M60Patton Patton

      That would be the new Nevermore, but KoK is a close second

  • DK0

    Well that was an hour of my life I will never get back…

    Good thing it was a fuckign sweet hour. Fuck Yeah! Never heard of these guys before i gave that a listen. Totally worth it, cant wait to put that on my mp3 player.

  • The Metalosopher

    Daaaaamn … I’m impressed.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Kyle-Troxell/1051027578 Kyle Troxell

    wow…killer stuff. thanks for the heads up on these dudes

  • Dysenteric

    Initial impressions: bit too much dragon. Why not go whole hog, you know, and include an ode to Toothless from How To Train Your Dragon? Or a ten-minute epic piece based on the Spyro the Dragon games for the PlayStation?

    • Dysenteric

      Listened to it all. Doesn’t do much for me. I think I’ll leave this one.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Dre-Toledo/628955415 Dre Toledo

    I felt in love with the last song of the album “Reptilian Majesty”.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Dre-Toledo/628955415 Dre Toledo

      And sounds much better on weed.

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/Dre-Toledo/628955415 Dre Toledo

        Please more synths on next albums.

  • Dan

    Absolutely fantastic, I’ve loved this band for years and this album completely annihilates their back catalogue by leaps and bounds.

    Thanks a lot for getting this one to us, for me this has to be the best album exclusive you’ve ever bestowed upon us. ^_^

    • lord assenfart

      i agree, i thought armada was pretty killer and it had a leg up on kollosus but this absolutely slays all of them.

  • TooOld

    Awesome that there is yet another metal album written about a medieval subject. We need this like we need another WWII record.

  • Seer

    This album is epic. Great stuff.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Alexandre-Perrault/545955672 Alexandre Perrault

    Ok. I’m officially a jaded fuck when it comes to metal. Every release I’ve enjoyed this year has been either prog-rock (the Ocean, Ihsahn), stoner rock (Barn Burner, Karma to Burn), noise rock (the Austerity Program), blackened indie (Ludicra), hardcore (Cancer Bats) or full-on indie (Titus Andronicus). I dug Immolation and Arsis, but otherwise I’m not listening to enough metal to merit my morbid moniker. The next release I’m excited about is Harvey Milk’s new album, for Christssake. THAT will almost certainly kick my ass.

    Of course, there’s always the prospect of Control Denied’s second album, and I need to obtain Atheist, Cynic and Wormrot’s. Iron Maiden have their final, and the Ocean have the “metal” release of their cycle. I shall redeem myself, brethren.

    This is okay, but I’m not in love. If you like this, you might enjoy Aeternam’s Disciples of the Unseen. I didn’t.

    • Matthew Grant Anson

      Blackened Indie?

      And I’m thinking a 2011 for the Atheist, though I really hope not.

  • treghet

    *fap fap fap fap fap*

  • |Tch0rT|

    100% bad ass! \m/

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/David-Hoefer/25511007 David Hoefer

    Kind of combines everything that is great about metal. Nothing new or innovative, but if this band was a president for this site it would be elected. It combines power, hardcore, thrash and some black metal very well, to make an extremely universal album.

    • Dysenteric

      Would you like to point out where the hardcore is?

      “if this band was a president for this site it would be elected”

      What the hell does that mean?

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/Alexandre-Perrault/545955672 Alexandre Perrault

        It is enjoyed by the most people. I guess. In metal, that’s not a sign of quality.

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/David-Hoefer/25511007 David Hoefer

        Sorry, I actually meant metalcore. And yeah, that was poorly worded — must’ve been drunk. Just pay attention my first sentence in that post.

  • tom

    Just started listening, never heard the band before. Hard to distinguish between whats strumming and what’s reverb – awesome :P \m/

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Andrew-G-Thompson/648290311 Andrew G Thompson

    Amazing…love it.

  • El Peras

    Way more solid than Kolossus…and that was a great album itself….glad to see the band keeps on getting better.

  • LYCANTHROPE

    THANK YOU for introducing me to a new band!

  • Will

    Wow, this album is blowing me away. “Leaving the mortal flesh” == OMG BADASS!

  • Dysenteric

    And let us not forget that this band truncated one of their songs (‘The Dragontower’) so they could participate in the Eurovision Song Contest qualifiers. If that’s not a loss of artistic credibility, then I don’t know what is.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Ville-Vuorinen/1377541396 Ville Vuorinen

    So entering a competition means lesser credibility? Oh grow up.

    • Dysenteric

      No, no, I don’t have any problem with artists entering competitions in general. But this case is a black metal band cutting one of their songs short to enter a pop showcase of fun but artistically redundant music, and that ain’t very black metal, is it? Eurovision and its qualifiers are meant to be for light entertainment for one night a year, and that’s it. If you’re a serious musician, then decide to cut your song to enter something like Eurovision, then your credibility is bound to suffer a bit.

      • Dan

        In the beginning, black metal was a way of getting out of the crowd, to be something different, a big “fuck you” to the mainstream. That was twenty years ago, now everyone does the same thing, so what once was different and unique, is now a trend itself. Sure it’s a trend that most of us love, but a trend none the less. Keep of Kalessin broke that trend by doing something no other black metal band would dare to do – sign up for a massive mainstream competition, even though it goes against all that is “brutal” and “hardcore”. They’re the ones that jumped out of the crowd, what could be more black metal than that?

        And they followed it up with an album that’s better than their previous efforts in every single way, so they’ve clearly not sold out. Begrudging them for taking a minute out of a song to fit the competition’s rules is ridiculous, which band DOESN’T want to expose themself to a larger crowd and get more fans?

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jason-Valencia/552328339 Jason Valencia

    cant stop listening to “THE AWAKENING” THAT SONG IS FUCKING AWESOME!

  • killdozer666

    Liked Kolossus better, but this was still pretty sick

  • Diabolical999

    Goddamn, this album is like an overdose of AWESOMENESS.

  • Ian

    Isn’t it about time labels stop having different release dates in the US and Europe? Hello, there’s this thing called the internet! By having split release dates, you just increase the chance of people grabbing pirate copies.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jason-Valencia/552328339 Jason Valencia

      thats absolutely true, the album is probably already able to download via torrent, if it was released the same date, i would have buy it no doubt!

  • tc7005

    first time listening to this band. and judging by the first few songs, i’m gonna have to get a copy of this. Very nice intros to each song and a very full sound. Thanks for introducing me to them.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jacob-Major/100000333155084 Jacob Major

    Awesome. Never been much into Black Metal, more of a Groove and Thrash person myself, but this ticks all the boxes on my list. Definately adding this to my iPod.

  • Jimmah5000

    I just came maggots.

  • johny

    it’s awesome, epic fucking win