For the Newcastle-based instrumental quartet of Kylver, crafting wildly vivid narratives through their music is what they do best. In 2015, they released an album, The Mountain Ghost, that chronicled a spirit that lived within a mountain. The spirit would travel down the mountain in the winter months to terrorize the people of the town at the base of the mountain. The people devise a trap for the ghost by enticing him with a feast in his honor, only to be poisoned by the very people he tormented. Kylver managed to portray this story through a brief summary of their concept and a luminous display of musicianship. Having to rely on the listener's ability to create their own imagery for the narrative is bold, but the task is less arduous when the talented musicians who created the music made something so bright.
2016 sees Kylver returning to the studio to make a followup to The Mountain Ghost. The group maintained a similar formula, building vibrant stories through nothing but instrumentation and an accompanying narrative. On this occasion, the album is called The Island, and Metal Injection is excited to be able to premiere a stream for the new work from these English gentlemen. This five-track, 42-minute endeavor details the happenings of a man who washes up on an island, the only survivor of a wrecked privateering ship. Each track is a different part in the tale. From the 13-minute opener that brings the wreckage of the ship to life, to the following three songs that describe the man's unraveling on the island, to the discovery of the Great Race's unfortunate twist on the survivor's recurrent days back home in the album's final song. The band details the narrative as follows:
The concept of 'The Island' follows a privateer ship whose crew are hired to find a mythical island that is said to hold a portal to another dimension, space or some other world. The ship doesn't last a day or two at sea before is wrecked in a storm. Only one of the crew members survives the storm and finds himself washed up on the beach of the island with a mysterious looking pendant. The pendant contains a map to monoliths that hold the key to the portal. Throughout his journey across the island he has a constant feeling of being followed before becoming across a female inhabitant of the island who helps to guide him in his journey. Once he reaches the standing stones, our sailor is greeted by four cloaked figures who activate the island portal. Once he is transported into the black abyss he encounters beings that are known as 'The Great Race' whose wealth of knowledge is so great, it is too much for any man to comprehend. The ship's sole survivor begs to be sent home as this strange environment he has found himself in is turning his mind into something he cannot fathom. The Great Race agree to send him back but not before they erase all of his memory of his journey. Moreover, The Great Race add another and very selfish twist to protect their knowledge even further. When he arrives back he returns to earth on the eve before the ship sets sail, and from then on his life is stuck in a perpetual loop, with the same events happening over and over and over again.
Kylver brilliantly siphons influences from other instrumental greats like Russian Circles and fuse heavy riffs with with progressive rock motifs to create something that is wholly unique and adventurous to listen to. They possess a strong storytelling ability and an even stronger penchant for music. Check out their captivating new album below and visit their Bandcamp page to listen to their debut album, The Mountain Ghost. Kylver can also be found on Facebook, make sure to like their page to keep up with the latest news.