In a day where Black Metal has spilled over into other scenes and other countries, it's increasingly harder to find new, Norwegian Black Metal bands, be it their choice to remain underground, the homogenisation of the scene as a whole or a combination of the two. Even older bands appear to be losing their novelty and their charm amongst the overflow; then there's KHOLD. Around since 2000, their stance has been unwavering, turning their noses up at production gimmicks and sticking to the bare basics of strings, skins and screams. "Til Endes", their 2014 release, is a stalwart continuation of this admirable effort.

Immediately familiar from the onset to the listener is their recognisable 'Black 'n' Roll' approach; it's chunky, chuggy, even periodically groovy, but retaining the frigid and frostbitten abrasiveness of their musical forerunners. "Myr" seems to take a decidedly MAYHEM-like approach, at least in the initial riffs. Kept at a decidedly slow pace, the dusk-setting chord progressions take the listener for a ride on this one; interestingly, the guitars and decidedly crisp bass juxtapose eachother, playing in opposite progressions, creating a chilling and dissonant sonic environment. Tracks like "Ravnestrupe" and "Til Endes" pull a musical bender; setting out as 'traditional' black metal onslaughts, regress back into heavily groove-laden, chuggy trances, with varying levels of heaviness.

That's just one of the things you can't help but love, or at the very least appreciate, about this band; Black Metal with a heavy, riff-focussed punch, and production that focuses on a different kind of minimalism; not the stereotypical, grating, grainy and quite-frankly-awful-sounding buzz, but that which focuses on the only agents at hand; the instruments. If there is a highlight in the exquisite sound of this record, it is the delicious-sounding bass, heard best on the heavyweight "Hengitt"; mixed at an enjoyably-ostentatious level with a cutting crunch, KHOLD might be one of the only Black Metal bands in existence to actually use the bass to enhance the music's dynamics.

It is decidedly difficult to compare KHOLD to any other band in the field; for many of you, that may well stand out as, for want of a better term, a selling point, but they indeed have another excellent release under their belt. If you're looking for grimdark walls of sound and technicality, move on; but you may as well stay a while, and listen.