Konvent – Firesky
Release Date: 6th November 2026
Label: Napalm Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Death Doom
FFO: Primitive Man, Neurosis, Hooded Menace.
Review By: Jeff Finch
A band like Konvent doesn’t come along too often (or maybe I’m just not aware enough); a four-piece death doom band featuring all female members. But do not think of them as just an all-female band, because they are anything but. What Konvent is, especially after digesting Firesky, is a mammoth, a musical glacier hell bent on tearing through anything in its way, just at a slower pace than some, a prehistoric beast on the prowl through devastating terrain with one thing in mind: punishment. And boy, is that what they do here on Firesky, their third full length, and one featuring their longest average song length to date (8 minutes even with a short end track).
The riffs on this record are crushing, thick, enveloping, atmospheric, and sometimes downright suffocating. Mix this with gutturals yanked from the deepest bowels of hell, courtesy of vocalist Rikke Emilie List, a bass tuned so low it sounds geological, like tectonic plates grinding beneath an enormous slab of concrete, and the deliberate lumbering of the percussion, giving those riffs a pulse less like a heartbeat and more like something colossal is coming right for us. Pardon the prehistoric metaphors, but this shit is primal, even when they take the Opeth route of lulling us into peace for minutes on end. For several minutes listeners have been pelted with gargantuan sounds, doom and gloom around every corner that just bursts through obstacles without a second thought, who cares that it was your eardrums or your car steering wheel which is now broken, that’s a job well done by surviving so there’s a break for a time. But is it really peaceful, really a break, when the listener knows their face is going to be ripped back into reality and then melted, the music a sonic blowtorch aimed right at the skull? When we’re finally brought back, the band somehow sounds heavier, as if they were just regenerating their HP during the little break. Harrowing black metal vocals are introduced into the fold, so now the band sounds even more powerful, only getting stronger as the minutes move as the riffs do: slowly, thickly, like molasses on the first day of a new year.
And make no mistake, in no way is this a boring, slow slog, no way. The sounds have depth, the music and vocals taking invisible, unnoticed cues from one another to create ample clarity in the punishment, some of these riffs so gnarly, yet so clear even among the distortion, that you’ll find yourself head banging in half time, mosh worthy if you don’t mind going up against a mastodon. It’s the perfect soundtrack when the mind needs metal, especially for menial tasks (like me), but the space is limited and the work is not conducive to standard head banging. And the moments where the band speeds up, shifts into 3rd gear, yield maximum impact, stuffing double the notes and double the intensity into a rapid burst of fire, the sky torched by the flames erupting from hell as those black metal shrieks pierce the ears and skull with blatant disregard for human limitations. Every decision the band makes is for maximum impact without sacrificing quality: riffs aren’t there just to sound like a freight train, they’re there to pull listeners in at a manageable pace so the rest of the band can take turns pummeling the now-roped-in listener. Vocals are deep, savage, unforgiving, while the shrieks are hair-raising and ear-splitting (in only the best way). The bass does what the bass needs to do, it keeps the train rumbling all night long, in tandem with the percussion whose power is truly felt when everything else has fallen in line. And lucky for listeners, Konvent never leaves this line; they are locked in from the first note. While listeners who aren’t a big fan of the Opeth style of traversing the sound spectrum likely might find those moments a bit too long, multiple listens will demonstrate their importance, so even if they aren’t liked, the artistic decisions are respected.
(5 / 5)
