### Galvano: Two titans

#### 12/11/12 || sincan

Gothenburg have lately been having a renaissance when it comes to rock and metal. Before this happened the melodic death metal scene turned into some melodic pop’n’emo which billion of young bands copied, raped even further, and puked out through their asses. But bands like Graveyard and now Galvano knows what it all about, some fucking genuineness, were the guitars are brought to work instead of some pink fairy colored choruses making your penis all soft and whatnot.

No, Galvano is not an Italian battery, it’s a sludge metal band consisting of two members handling guitars, vocals and drums. “Two titans” is their first album and it is sure as hell something interesting to pick up a cold November night (if you live somewhere not cold, it’s at least November!) The opening track starts pretty slow were the guitar builds up a fine piece of melody before the drums joins and raises the expectations of what’s coming. Then the heavy ass riff hits you on the brain along with the vocals, of no pop singing ever, filling your head. This continues during the entire album more or less, were the atmosphere is dark and heavy.

It’s pretty obvious that you can manage without a bass player if the only thing he is supposed to do is to make the guitars thicker, however while listening trough the entire album I sometimes think that a bass taking some interesting journeys would be something that would add another dimension to this pretty solid piece of music. But at the same time it’s always nice creating good things out of minimalistic means so I guess it’s a matter of taste, as always.

The instrumental “Hyperion” slows things down a bit and works pretty good to mix it all up whereas one without it might have been fallen into the sludge slumber of no escape, as in starting to forget about the music and start to think about your hard on, why the fridge is empty or who the fuck gave you the rash. Each track is good, it’s just that the heavy piece of music on this album makes my brain and ears all numb after a while and the instrumental slowdown wakes me up again so that I can remember the other half of the record.

I really appreciate the way the vocals are not given too much space in the mix, they blur into the rest of the music a bit which makes the music into a unity of sonic wallness instead of a sprawling abomination of less heaviness. The rest of the production is really doing what it should, the guitars are heavy and the drums are all audible and not in the clinical plastic way but in a more organic depth creating style.

This record actually surprised me a lot, and it is nice that bands from Gothenburg makes some descent music again, please continue with that all you out there.

- Information
- Released: 2012
- Label: Devouter Records
- Website: Galvano Bandcamp
- Band
- Mattias Nööjd: vocals, guitars
- Fredrik Käll: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Abysmal
- 02. Bleeding lamb
- 03. Destroyer
- 04. Hyperion
- 05. Ethereal sword
- 06. Maelstrom
- 07. Punisher
- 08. Throne of blood