Band:	Kälter
Album:	Ubuntu
Style:	Melodic death metal, Progressive metal
Release date:	October 2012

01. Intuitions
02. Flying Seeds
03. ReMember
04. Reflexions
05. Adversity
06. Tribulation
07. Rhythm Of Passion Part I: The Awakening
08. Rhythm Of Passion Part II: The Gathering

Do you think it's impossible for a band to be a truly creative force when operating in the melodic death metal subgenre today? These lads from the French-speaking part of Canada with a German word for a name and a sound based on Swedish and Finnish metal foundations (does your brain hurt yet?) want to prove that it is in fact a simple task if you have the know-how.

You're allowed to be skeptical - after all, I was as well. Such a peculiarly titled melodeath album, with a vividly colored cover (and on it, what appears to be an Incan warrior looking into the face of his death), which starts with a (synthetic) flute intro would doubtlessly bring to mind a band trying to sound like Wintersun - and that's only one of the more fortunate solutions! Luckily, my initial associations were utterly off the mark.

As mentioned before, their sound is indeed based in the typical Northern European tradition of melodic metal made a bit more extreme (or, depending on what band you have in mind, extreme metal made super melodic) but the strong progressive leanings and folk motifs turn it into something different entirely. The guitars assume a mostly atmospheric role, with keyboards taking over the lead, and setting the mood of each individual song, from the folky opener to the cinematic, epic "Tribulation". This is definitely not the album for the synth-phobic, as keyboard solos are raining like confetti here. The drummer likes progging it up, and the band seems to work fine in instrumental format, with long instrumental stretches that aren't at all boring - "Reflexions", that comes off as an afterthought (or maybe that's just me being deluded by the track name) to the preceding song, "ReMember", is very engaging in particular.

You can tell Kälter's style is still in its infancy, but, based on this material, you definitely wouldn't assume they were a Children Of Bodom cover band just five years prior! Well, now that I've mentioned it, there is some vaguely Laiho-ish vocal phrasing in a stanza in the two-part album closer "Rhythm Of Passion", but what I really meant was that they have already written an album that I enjoy a lot more than what they started out covering, which is, I suppose, every band's dream. It is available for streaming in full over at Kälter's Bandcamp.