High amidst the snowy Norwegian mountains, KEEP OF KALESSIN are hammering away at their upcoming seventh album. As the band prepare to add another fantastical fixture to their treasured discography in 2025, today, they’re polishing off another one of their crown jewels.
After receiving the colossal honor of a Spellemannprisen nomination for another recently reissued album, even battle-vested metalheads who’ve followed them through times of war might’ve wondered if Keep of Kalessin had finally peaked on the field of battle. But with Reptilian, these living legends scaled to truly epic extremes. Not only did the album climb all the way to #2 on the Norwegian album charts. “The Dragontower” crowned Keep of Kalessin as the first extreme metal band to represent Norway in the Eurovision Song Contest.
“At the time, Reptilian was for sure our biggest production”, says Keep of Kalessin’s Arnt Obsidian. “The effort put into this album was intense and there were times I felt I had taken on too much with such a limited budget. Even Daniel Bergstrand freaked out when I gave him 48 tracks of just guitars on some parts using the guitars as a full symphony orchestra. This, plus choirs, keyboards and the rest of the band was almost too much to get any mix that made sense. But we managed to pull it off in the end.
“The album hold some of my personal favorites from our entire catalog in ‘Dragon Iconography’, ‘The Divine Land; and ;Reptilian Majesty;. On the 13 minute closing track, my goal was to take the extreme metal approach to creating epics like ‘Alexander The Great’ and ‘Rime Of The Ancient Mariner’ from Iron Maiden. So I felt really proud when Torgrim Oyre wrote a review in one of the biggest newspapers in Norway that ‘Reptilian Majesty’ was the extreme metal equivalent to heavy metal anthems like Rime Of The Ancient Mariner even without me mentioning it to him! He got it spot on!”
Season of Mist will reissue Reptilian on March 21, 2025.
Pre-order & Stream: https://orcd.co/kokreptillian
Available Formats:
Digital Download
CD Jewel Case
12″ Double Vinyl Gatefold (Transparent lime with white-and-black marble)
Keep of Kalessin came up sharing the same rarefied air as Behemoth and Satyricon, but Reptilian shed their traditional black metal influences for more epic extremes. While the title traces back to the band’s mythical origins, opener “Dragon Iconography” slithers from the mist with fire-breathing blasts and slashing riffs that could outslay any modern-day warrior.
“Born of dragons / Fearsome beasts of legends” the band howl while charging into the heat of battle with axes ablaze.
Even amongst their many epic tales, Reptilian still towers above the beasts of extreme metal.
More praise for Keep of Kalessin:
“Keep of Kalessin’s two-decade journey has been one of constant evolution…What has remained constant, though, is the band’s sense of ambition and epic scale” – Metal Hammer
“By emphasizing songwriting that skewed towards the epic and often incorporated symphonic and progressive elements alongside huge, polished production values, they offered a sound that felt like it spanned just about every aspect of metal but managed to pull it together in a seamless manner – Metal Trenches
“Totally turned black metal on its head” – Metal Sucks
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