KYLVER

KYLVER is an instrumental progressive rock and metal band from Newcastle upon Tyne in the UK. They have recently released their first studio album, “The Mountain Ghost” which consists of four instrumental tracks.
I, Mohsen Fayazi, had a chance to have an interview with the band’s bassist, James Bowmaker and guitarist Jonny Scott a few days ago.

We started our chat by discussing the band’s name, and as I expected it originates from a Swedish runestone which was found at Kylver, Stånga, Gotland in 1903. “I just found it online, I was reading things on runestones when I was listening to Wardruna.“ said guitarist Jonny Scott.

The Kylver Stone is still a mystery for us, as we still don’t know what the inscription written on it, means exactly. But some archaeologists believe that it is associated with magic. Well I can say magic and mystery fits the band’s music well.

As I said before, KYLVER‘s “Mountain Ghost” is a kind of conceptual album, however it is an instrumental one. So we continued talking about this album with genius qualities. “We originally wrote the whole music and then came up with the title of the songs.” said James, and then Jonny explained that they got the idea from a folklore item, from a village in Switzerland, “In that village, a lot of houses have these wooden carvings on the walls and it’s called the Mountain Ghost.”

Sometimes music can paint the stories which no words can, when the band lets the fans use their imagination to create their own stories and that is what KYLVER have done. But the band have their own definition for this ghost, “A kind of misunderstood lonely ghost,” Jonny told me and he continues “He torments this village but he really wants some company and companionship, but he is doing it the wrong way.”

There is a Persian proverb which says “What comes from the heart, will go through the hearts.” And that is probably the answer of why it is so joyful to listen to this album. “We enjoyed playing the songs, we enjoyed writing the songs… It is our first release, we got good feed back.”

After talking about and discussing each track, I asked James and Jonny about their plans for the future and Jonny surprised me by saying “We started to write the next album…” and with this interesting news, we finished our interview. I must say that I am really looking forward to hear from these talented guys soon. You can listen to the whole of this interview on our Audio Player below:

Review by Mohsen Fayazi

Artist: KYLVER
Album: The Mountain Ghost
Label: Self-Release
Release date: 21 May 2015

Tracklist:

The Mountain Has Ghosts
The Feast Of The Mountain Ghost
The Dance Of The Mountain Ghost
The Death Of The Mountain Ghost

Hailing from the city Newcastle upon Tyne in the metropolitan county of Tyne and Wear, KYLVER is an instrumental progressive rock and metal band. Although they don’t have a long history, their music promises a shining one. That means these four young genius musicians have a long road and challenges ahead, one on which I hope they can continue with their wisdom, passion and hard work.

KYLVER are set to see the release of their first studio album, “The Mountain Ghost” which consists of four instrumental tracks, which means those are really long songs. The problem of the lengthy song is that can easily become boring, especially after seven or eight minutes. But there are ways to make it exciting and KYLVER seem to know the secret well. Changing and switching into different themes and atmospheres is one of those ways and that’s what these young fellows have done. For example the first track, ‘The Mountain Has Ghosts’, which is about 14 minutes long, starts with a simple mysterious and dark melody, then it changes to a heavy riff which gives you an epic theme, then switches to a horror type atmosphere.

“The Mountain Ghost” is an instrumental album, so of course there is no vocal and obviously no lyrics, but it doesn’t mean there is no story there. In fact, I found it to be a kind of conceptual album, as KYLVER have their own way of talking with musical notes, instead of words and letters. It is Genius. By listening to this album, with full of your attention, you will find yourself in all of those stories, sometimes upon a mysterious mountain, sometimes in a quiet but weird masquerade and you will even hear a story about the death of an un-dying creature. So I think we should give the credit of vocals to those instruments and their players.

The whole album is written, recorded, mastered and produced very well. Opposite to the artwork, the music is not boring at all, but creative. So “The Mountain Ghost” has the potential to give you the joy of listening to good music, even if progressive music is not your cup of tea.

Rate: 8/10

KYLVER Online: