Since 2006’s watershed album, Armada, Norway’s Keep of Kalessin have teased with utter brilliance mired in mediocrity. Truly epic, brilliant songs like “Armada”, ‘Crown of the Kings”, “Dragon Iconography”, “The Rising Sign” or “The Divine Land” littered the last three albums and while 2010’s Reptillian seemed to remedy the peaks and valleys of the band’s consistency, I keep waiting for that killer album that just leaves you in awe from beginning to end.

And Epsitemology is soooooo close.

Even with Obsidian Claw now fully in charge and taking over vocals from Thebon (though you’d be hard pressed to tell in either blackened rasps or the clean vocals), the band is instantly recognizable as KoK, keeping in line with the last three albums, as Epsitemology (loosely meaning theory of knowledge and philosophy, and the album’s central concept) delivers glossy, epic, searingly melodic, synth laced black metal that’s commercially digestible but still black enough to have a little bite.

After the throwaway intro “Cosmic Revelation”, Epsitemology, as with the last few albums, opens in grand fashion and with more than a bang as the 10 minute “The Spiritual Belief” belts out a downright grandiose, furiously melodic track that borders on Wintersun like intensity and delivery with a chorus to simply die for. My initial worry that the track’s vocals were entirely clean and would signal clean vocals for the entire album were laid to rest with “Dark Divinity”, another furiously fast but epic track, with a little more edge and riff based structures that shows drummer Vyl is on a goddamn mission on this album.

Then as seems to be the M.O. for Keep of Kalessin, we seem to get a bit of a lull with a couple of more standard choppy, stuttering thrash numbers, “The Grand Design” and “Necropolis” (which seems to just really go nowhere for its last 2 minutes). Sure, they give you a break from the bombastic salvos (and give Vyl a break as well?). However, “Universal Core” returns to the blistering salvo and majestic blasts and let’s be honest that’s what KoK does best and why you listen to them. Because when they are ‘on’ and in this mode, they can’t be fucked with.

Penultimate track “Introspection”, the album’s first single, is a safer song, balancing both the band’s styles, but the album ends as it starts with the lengthy, monster title track that mixes the band’s trademark majesty and swirling tempered Middle Eastern hues, again showcasing how good these guys can be, but still often delivering some filler. But man, those two bookend tracks, “Divine Divinity” and “Universal Core” make Epistemology worthwhile alone and show Obsidian Claw and Co. are perfectly capable of carrying on KoK‘s sound with often jaw dropping results.

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