{"id":2790,"date":"2018-04-06T14:27:43","date_gmt":"2018-04-06T14:27:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/slateman.net\/blog\/?p=2790"},"modified":"2018-04-06T14:27:43","modified_gmt":"2018-04-06T14:27:43","slug":"kalmah-get-album-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/slateman.net\/blog\/archives\/2790","title":{"rendered":"Kalmah Get!  Album Of The Year?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/slateman.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Logo.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/slateman.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Logo-300x155.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"155\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-2791\" srcset=\"https:\/\/slateman.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Logo-300x155.jpg 300w, https:\/\/slateman.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Logo.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>The mighty Finns return with album # 8 trying to trump the masterpiece that was <b>Seventh Swamphony<\/b>.  The first singles didn&#8217;t win me over, but then again neither did the title track of album #7 and I&#8217;m thinking that may be top-20 ever.  Really.  <\/p>\n<p>So, with the arrival of <b>Palo<\/b> &#8211; is <b>Kalmah<\/b> a shoe-in for <i>yet another<\/i> <a href=\"\/records\/\">AotY victory<\/a>?  They took 2013, narrowly missed 2010, and won three times in the &#8217;00s.  Only fellow Finnish metalers <b>Moonsorrow<\/b> even mustered three AotY titles &#8211; could <b>Kalmah<\/b> make this their fifth?  <\/p>\n<p>Well, hold on now.  We&#8217;ve got the mighty return of <b>Dimmu Borgir<\/b> ahead, <b>Amorphis<\/b> and even an Abbath-less <b>Immortal<\/b> record looming. However, neither of the two Norwegian bands ever captured an annual crown and <b>Amorphis<\/b> last flew their blue-and-white 24 years ago with 1994&#8217;s AotY <b>Tales From The Thousand Lakes<\/b>, truly a genre-defining album.  <\/p>\n<p>While some stragglers could pose a threat, there&#8217;s only one I can currently predict to genuinely battle the swamplords for the title.  Yes, <b>At The Gates<\/b> is back!  We&#8217;ve been treated to a pair of tracks from their second post-hiatus album: one an average filler song and the other which could vie for the best <b>ATG<\/b> riff ever written.  That thing is a monster and made me salivate for the LP a mere eight seconds into the title track.  The album arrives in six short weeks, plenty of time to devour this <b>Kalmah<\/b> opus.  <\/p>\n<p><P>And speaking of&#8230;just being a new <b>Kalmah<\/b> record is hardly enough to secure top honors for the year.  Subsequent listens of those first singles has really gotten me on board, but some of the middle tracks haven&#8217;t hooked me yet.  It ends well, with catchy grooves and some bloody-fucking-fast blastbeats.  However, I&#8217;m not fully convinced it&#8217;ll lie atop 2018&#8217;s heap of music just yet.  But come to think of it, the same thing happened with <b>Vintersorg<\/b> just last year.  Let&#8217;s check back in a few weeks.  They&#8217;ll inevitably <a href=\"https:\/\/www.last.fm\/user\/slateman\">reclaim the title as my top-played band<\/a>, but beyond that &#8211; who knows.  <b>ATG<\/b> might very well be that goddamn good!!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The mighty Finns return with album # 8 trying to trump the masterpiece that was Seventh Swamphony. The first singles didn&#8217;t win me over, but then again neither did the title track of album #7 and I&#8217;m thinking that may be top-20 ever. Really. So, with the arrival of Palo &#8211; is Kalmah a shoe-in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,15,13],"tags":[117],"class_list":["post-2790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-worst","category-blog","category-music","tag-kalmah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/slateman.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/slateman.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/slateman.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slateman.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slateman.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2790"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/slateman.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2792,"href":"https:\/\/slateman.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2790\/revisions\/2792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/slateman.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slateman.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slateman.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}