Kiss the Anus of a Black Cat - If the Sky Falls, We Shall Catch Larks (2005)

Kiss the Anus of a Black Cat is a band I found a few years ago on a compilation. Their name is a reference to a medieval witchcraft ritual, and is sure to inspire a few "what?"'s from anyone you the mention them to.

KtAoaBC is the solo project of Belgian singer/songwriter Stef Heeren, who describes the project as "apocalyptic folk". From the opening seconds of the album, you can tell this is a very accurate description. "Sevenfold" opens with a dark drone, soon overtaken by rhythmic guitar and tambourine; a voice, one that consists of equal parts beautiful melody and grating heretical venom, lays over top. Simple chorus chants fill the background. The darkness is repetitious, infectious. "Nihil, as in Nihilism" starts slower, repeating a guitar melody with lyrics until about the midway point, when it leaves its softer edges for a tribal angst, and cries of "we need a new heaven now". "Sighing, Seething, Soothing" is 19 minutes long, making up about half the album by itself. It is a slow piece, featuring droning noises and bells that wash away under a piano, only to come back more dissonant than before. Eventually, tribal drumming and simple guitar melodies and choruses come to the forefront. It is the essence of KtAoaBC's sound: simple, yet complex, tribal, almost-shamanistic, repetitious, yet never boring, and with a deep undercurrent of darkness running within it. The album closer "Almost, Silver" again has a slow build up to a fantastic track: finger picked guitar and vocals eventually are joined by heavier drumming, and background noise. Though the album is only four tracks, it just about reaches the forty-minute mark.

Kiss the Anus of a Black Cat is a band that can appeal to a wide variety of people, from the neofolk listeners to the post-rock listeners to the neofolk listeners to the pagan metal listeners (I happen to be all four of those). This album, as well as the band's other works, is highly recommended.