Kehlvin are a progressive hardcore band from Switzerland and this is their third album.
Holistic Dreams contains 35 minutes of material. Kehlvin’s style is a progressive form of hardcore that also has post-hardcore and sludge metal flavours in it. For lack of a better description, imagine a mix of Knut, The Dillinger Escape Plan, and Mastodon, and that will give you a rough starting point for Kehlvin’s sound.
This is a band that can be seriously heavy when they want to be. Some of the thick grooves and burly rhythm guitars can surely knock down walls. Mixed in amidst these crushing waves of sound though are various subtleties and nuances, alongside moments of outright lightness and calm.
The songs are well-written and have a rich life of their own. All of the tracks are memorable and engaging. They all differentiate themselves nicely from each other, and it’s easy to navigate the album if you were dropped down into it randomly. The band’s music has character beyond pure heaviness, with the singer in particular adding to this with his varied catalogue of shouts, screams, wails, and yells.
Holistic Dreams reminds me of the fertile late 90s/early 00s period that gave us bands like Botch, Coalesce, Isis, Cave In, and Keelhaul. If you like those bands, as well as the ones I mentioned above, then you’re likely to get on well with Kehlvin’s output.
Very highly recommended.
Wonderbox Metal 