Karg – Marodeur

Written by on 20-04-2025 at 20:00.

Have any of you ever been on a horse? Have any of you ever fallen off such a quadruped during a wild ride? Well, I have. And I will never ever climb on such a nice animal again, not even if it is on a leash and being closely watched by its owner. Karg from Austria dares to put such a wild four-legged friend on the cover. This band has been playing black metal, with many other influences ranging from gaze, grunge, post rock to post punk since its conception in 2006, when it was still a one-man band. The band is inspired lyrically by the melancholy of life and writes down its musings in a local dialect that is spoken in a small region around Salzburg in the Tennen, a mountainous region in the Alps.

This Marodeur is album number nine and I took a real liking to the previous album Resignation from 2022. The very first album on the other hand, Von Den Winden Der Sehnsucht released in 2008, is not known to me. AOP records has been the regular record dealer of this band for years, but also of frontman J.J.’s other band, Harakiri For The Sky. It is no coincidence that Karg takes these friends with him on a few tour dates to promote this new album.

To support it, Karg features several guest musicians: Klara Bachmair (Firtan, Vinsta) on violin and Perchta (Perchta) and Marko Kolac (Svntarer) on vocals, respectively on Schnee ist das Blut der Geister and Kimm.

Whether snow can really be considered as the blood of the spirits is not entirely clear to me, but perhaps the music of this first track will help formulating an answer to this reflection. In any case, the first synth sounds do give you the feeling that you have ended up in a calm snow shower. You feel the flakes falling down, as if making you realize that you are alive and that you have to struggle through the gloom of this life. The brutal guitar parts may help to convince you even more, and if they do not do it, then certainly the lead parts will, sounding so utterly sad that you spontaneously start to cry. This is what these gentlemen have become particularly good at: writing sad guitar parts. It is also beautiful how, at the end of this first song, the piano introduces a theme and transfers it to Findling, the song of which you can watch the video clip above.

Yūgen carries a particularly strong main theme and combined with the typical J.J. vocals it feels like a more than lived-through song. Especially when a sample is used from the film Märzengrund by Adrian Goiginger (2022). Verbrannte Brücken benefits from its predecessor but stands out with a powerful blast part that stretches out nicely. You can also hear that brutality and pronounced expression in the thundering Reminiszenzen einer Jugend. If you like some grunge and post-punk influences trickling in, I would recommend listening to the closing Anemoia.

Hop in gallop I would dare to say. The melancholic post-black metal band Karg again brings on their most recent album, Marodeur, an anthology about all the misery a person can experience. He still does this in his well-known style, with typical vocals, rock-solid song structures and ditto rhythm changes.

Score:

85/100

Label:

AOP Records, 2025

Tracklisting:

  1. Schnee ist das Blut der Geister
  2. Findling
  3. Yūgen
  4. Verbrannte Brücken
  5. Annapurna
  6. Reminiszenzen einer Jugend
  7. Kimm
  8. Anemoia

Line-up:

  • J.J. – Vocals, bass guitar
  • Paul Färber – Drums
  • Daniel Lang – Guitar
  • Georg Traschwandtner – Guitar
  • Christopher Pucher – Guitar

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