Kal-El - Astrodoomeda (EN)

"Astrodoomeda", that is the title of the new album of the Norwegian Stoner Rock Band Kal-El. It will be released in august 2017, but now it is in my player and ready for a review.

The first song, which is the title track of the album at the same time, begins rather calm. A guitar chord, in which every tune is played individually, comes out of the speakers and thus creates a small basic mood. You get the feeling to sit in the middle of a big ash-cloud which fogs you in completely. Then you have exciting expectations for the rest of the band which gets the song going in a typical stoner sound manner.

The guitar and the bass claw through the speakers nicely, they get supported by the drums immediately and finally with the entry of the singer all doubt is blown away. He merges perfectly into the basic structure of the band and strengthens the above mentioned basic mood of the track. Now and then you hear similarities to the ingenious Ozzy Osbourne. That is really no surprise, since the band is inflluenced by Black Sabbath according to the leaflet. A small instrumental part in the middle, which is extended to a solo, and the first song is finished with almost ten minutes duration.

The second track is intitiated with a countdown just like a rocket launch. You get, so to speak, catapulted into the "mood" and you almost believe you could fly. Here the chorus is sung with more than one voice, which lends the song more dynamic and which makes the song a bit more groovy and straight-forward in comparison to the first track.

You can feel that Kal-El is a band which is keyed to each other perfectly and that you do not deal with beginners here. The quartet was founded in 2012 from musicians of the bands Theatre of Tragedy's, Six Eyes Lost and Desspo.

The remaining songs are similar constructed like the above mentioned ones. Unfortunately, this is also the main problem of the disc, the surprising moment are missing. It is not enough to just adjust the speed, but there should be an aha-moment in the song now and then. Sadly, they cheaped out on this here, thus the overall impression turned out worse.

Conclusion:
Kal-El created a fine album with "Astrodoomeda". Great songs with typical aspects of stoner rock have been studio composed and thus are recorded for all eternity. Fans of bands such as Monster Magnet, Nebula, Black Sabbath should listen to this, as the disc was almost made for them.

Rating: 6/10

Recommendations: Astrodoomeda, Atmosphere