Kalmen - Course Hex

Germany's Kalmen is wonderfully dark and gloomy black-doom metal. This is a fairly new band who formed in 2009 bringing  their first demo release to the table back in 2011. "Course Hex" is Kalmen's first full length release and this album entire were recorded and produced by Tobias Engl/Englsound, who is known for creating gold out of everything he touches and has put out astonishing albums working with several known bands such as one of my personal favorites In Solitude as well as other bands least liked by yours truly but loved by many others, such as Solstafir. With all this being said, we can only expect much to come from Kalmen with "Course Hex" being their stepping stone to success.

My take on this album - it is cold, dark, doom and gloom with old black metal influence underlining it's base. These 6 tracks sort of gives a black metal stoner feeling by keeping a phat foggy atmosphere throughout and the haunted vocals give it that ghastly feel. Love the heavy percussion and thick bass throughout especially in the 2nd track 'Gizeth' I really love the nameless 6th track (prob a bonus), which is an eerie instrumental, great creepy way to end the album. The 5th track 'Naitrider' holds the most change overs compared to the other tracks on this album. It's intense and moody, very melodic and well just grabs you into it's realm.

I love everything about this album, it's composition, atmosphere, flow and primal rawness. This is primitive done with class. One can say that "Course Hex" is a spiritually blackened work filled with emotion and a controlled force which I would best compare with the dark force of nature itself.


  1. Sol Devina
  2. Gizeh
  3. My Soul Is Black
  4. Katharseas
  5. Naitrider
  6. -