The older I get, the more I realize I’m just not weird enough. Just being a fan of metal…even extreme metal…is not enough. I’m on the hunt for the truly outlandish…the fringe dwellers and musical outliers that subvert norms and come up with something new. This year, HAVUKRUUNU and ARKHAAIK have satisfied that craving. But with KOSTNATENI, I’ve reached another level yet.

KOSTNATENI is one Mr. DL and I’ve been a follower of his ever since I heard the monumental Oheň hoȓi tam, kde padl EP about four years ago. DL is a man not content to follow well-trodden paths. He wants to push metal guitar to places it’s never been before. On the LP Upal, he did just that, coming up with a furious mix of noise rock, extreme metal and Turkish/North African sounds. Well, with Přiliŝnost, he has come up with his wildest, rawest and heaviest sounds yet. Indeed, the translation of the album’s title is Excess and it lives up to that description. And more!

I guarantee you’ve never heard anything like this. It’s ferocious and extreme beyond anything KOSTNATENI has done before. It takes known forms like death and black metal and subverts them at every turn, so that you never know quite what you’re going to hear next. The riffing is just absolutely insane…warped and twisted, recorded in tunings rarely heard in extreme metal. To go over all the idiosyncrasies here would take just too much time. This is an album that would actually benefit by a track by track review.

Songs are short and pack a lot into their run-time. The music is restless, constantly changing and morphing. Yet it somehow hangs together, even though everything is on the razor’s edge of falling apart. Let’s look at the track ‘Further From Outside’ (song titles are all in Turkish but translations are provided). It starts with brutal, down-tuned death metal, ravenous and hungry, but 30 seconds in and record scratching kicks in! Clipped, almost rapping vocals emerge and you suddenly realize this song is like a distorted version of SLIPKNOT. DL adds some unholy screams and rasps and there’s some devastating slower riffs with more scratching and then psychedelic soloing and dreamy, unearthly vocals. There’s melody amid the madness and the song takes a left turn into hazy mists…which leads to the final deathly barrage of the title track, complete with guttural retching.

This whole album is nuts like that. It lives up to its title and challenges you at every turn. DL’s guitar playing is inhuman, but his vocals are also more unhinged than I’ve ever heard. And the session drumming of Joe Goldwater keeps up with the guitar in terms of insanity. KOSTNATENI is one of the most exciting and boundary-pushing acts in metal right now and Přiliŝnost will surely be in my top 10 this year.
Review By: Dr. Abner Mality

KOSTNATENI
Přiliŝnost
Willowtip Records