Kerberos – Apostle to The Malevolent
Release Date: 14th March 2025
Label: Independent Release
Bandcamp
Genre: Symphonic Death Metal
FFO: Folterkammer, Madder Mortem, Septic Flesh, Carved, Bach, Handel, Vivaldi.
Review By: Mark Waight
Swiss Symphonic Death Metal band Kerberos was founded in 2013 by Felicien Burkhard who was then joined by Nicolas Kaser in 2014. The addition of Ai-Ian Metzger in 2018 and Diego Lanzendorfer in late 2022 then completed the line-up and allowed them to take Kerberos on the road, playing to live audiences for the very first time in June 2023.
Apostle To the Malevolent is the genre blurring, ambitious and boundary pushing follow up to Kerberos’s debut album Of Mayhem and Dismay, which was released in September 2022. Inspired by the baroque era and delving into emotional themes such as mental health and personal trauma, Apostle to the Malevolent is pitched against the modern hellscape background of the capitalist world in which we all live. The album really strikes a chord with its often dark, malignant and disturbing mood.
Kerberos is Ai-lan Metzger (vocals), Diego Lanzendorfer (guitars), Felicien Burkhard (vocals, guitars and bass) and Nicolas Kaser (drums).
Short instrumental introduction Praeludium in H Moll has a very familiar feel to it as you wait patiently for the main event to begin. Bring it on!
Explosive track Near-Violence Experience uses a hard rocking riff combined with some cool orchestrations to build, enhance and hold that Symphonic metal atmosphere throughout. Add to that some very brutal vocals carefully melded with some emotional operatic/cinematic male and female vocals, and you have something beautifully bleak and deliciously dark to blacken your day.
The superfast paced Liar Within is full of confusion, chaos and conflict as this Bach meets metal mashup sends you tail spinning headfirst into oblivion. This sublime brain frying composition will leave you in a haze or a daze as it worms its way into your inner mind. Following in a similar vein, Alpine Sea ebbs and flows nicely between dark and light, using some superbly theatrical choral vocal harmonies to give this track a big screen movie feel. Desolately delicious!
The epically proportioned title track Apostle to the Malevolent, coming in at just under ten minutes, throws just about everything at us but the kitchen sink, as Kerberos run through their complete arsenal of musical weaponry. This is pretty-impressive stuff, and as Kerberos continue to evolve and grow by carving out their own unique niche and path in the modern metal world, they will be sure to pick up plenty of followers along the way.
Apostle to the Malevolent crosses several different musical genres as well as periods in time by completely obscuring all the boundaries and years elapsed between them in an 18th century meets the 21st century composition which takes retro to a whole new level. Kerberos are undoubtably highly skilled and gifted musicians, making this “the old fused with the new” concept well worth exploring further. Already looking forward to the next one and where Kerberos can take us next.
(3 / 5)
