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Khanate, "It's Cold When Birds Fall from the Sky"/"KHNTvsSTOCKHOLM"
While the final studio release from Khanate seems to be in cold storage, two essential live albums have been given the remaster and reissue treatment. Recorded a year apart from each other, these two discs provide a couple of vivid snapshots of an imposing live band. Both performances see Khanate in top form, destroying all hope with their sub-bass despair. It is exhilarating to hear such a ferocious racket channelled with such precision and purpose, yet utterly depressing that the group responsible is now no more.
It’s Cold when Birds Fall from the Sky was originally released by Archive two years ago and sold on Khanate's tour at the time. The set on this disc includes the entire Capture & Release album (all two songs of it) and "Pieces of Quiet" from their debut. The performance captured by Scott Slimm (the man behind the Archive label and most of his label's fantastic live recordings) can only be described as feral. The band stalk through the pair of lumbering and muscular songs from Capture & Release, the tension is beyond heavy. All the strain that the foursome have built up during the first forty minutes is unleashed upon their audience in the form of "Pieces of Quiet." The squealing feedback that pierces the song is like being slashed with a broken bottle across the face after the slower and longer songs that preceded it.
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As one of the more obscure Khanate releases, it is great to finally hear the KHNTvsSTOCKHOLM album. Recorded in 2004, a very small CD-R pressing was made of this disc at the time and up until now was going for silly money to collectors. While this version is also a limited edition, it will reach far more ears than the original release for a far better price. Despite the "Special Low Fidelity Edition" tagline to KHNTvsSTOCKHOLM I found the sound clear enough, the kind of quality from a good bootleg after someone with a good ear has tweaked the audio. Most importantly, it sounds just as intimidating as every other Khanate release. The only distraction is the sound of people chatting around whoever is recording the show.
Pummelling their equipment, the intensity of this gig is crushing. After nearly twenty minutes of the snuff horror of "Fields," "Pieces of Quiet" rears its shrieking head again. It is even more earth shattering than it was on It’s Cold…. The feedback is sharper and the music is even more violent. The highlight of KHNTvsSTOCKHOLM is undoubtedly the immense rendition of "Under Rotting Sky" that closes the set. This has always been the defining Khanate song for me and this version haemorrhages out of my headphones like the river of gore that takes the lift in The Shining. It may lack the polish of the studio version but it retains the power and increases the menace.
Both of these discs are essential documents of a group that were far more important and exciting than any other metal band of the last ten years. While no live album can ever be representative of the sheer force of experiencing Khanate live, they are a damn sight better than nothing. Khanate's criminally small back catalogue means that I will scramble for all I can get by them and both It's Cold… and KHNTvsSTOCKHOLM sit proud next to the other albums.
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