It was December of 2022 when I visited Temple Club in Athens to see Euphrosyne playing live and the opening act that night was KIVA, a totally unknown new band that managed to leave me open-mouthed because of their great live performance as they played songs that didn’t even have a title back then.
The dark cover of the album matches perfectly with the aesthetics of the band and drives you directly into the core of their music, a music that balances in between post metal and sludge while the doom flavor all over makes the feeling you get while listening the album even more stuffy. It is worth pointing out that KIVA may be a brand new band but all the members have experience in others Greek underground bands like Allochiria, Spacement, Amniac and Mind Ripple. The thing here is that although they don’t create something new (it’s not easy anyway) they manage to create something unique on their own, that follows the path of the grand post metal names, but I had to choose one word for the band I would say that it is intense, truly intense.
The Athenian’s album spreads out on five compositions, five compositions that require the full attention by the listener as this is the only way to fully appreciate the special vibe that come from the album as a whole but from each composition too. It is true that you should follow their point of view to feel the album, but if you do so there is no return, the album will grab you. Bass and drums lay the impressive groundwork and lead the way on each track and there is where come and match the slow heavy guitar riffing. I must admit that what really got me on the album is the ongoing shifting between hard and melodic music patterns that along with the variety on the vocals (harsh and clean ones), the band achieves the necessary balance. It is also worth to pay attention on the lyrics to get deeper into the album and feel how intense is the final result, take for example In Silence (an epic opening track) that makes you really feel what it describes, the feeling of the last breath as you sink, yes, like we sink under the gloomy blackness of KIVA.
The album comes in a nice digipak cd but there is also a nice combo with an equally beautiful tshirt, so check the band’s bandcamp.
