Kalmen are a band from Germany that plays a hypnotic mixture of black and doom metal and this is a review of their 2025 album "Sombre Vaults" which will be released in may by Van Records.
A very dark and heavy sound starts off the album while the riffs also add in a decent amount of melody. When the music speeds up a great amount of tremolo picking and blast beats can be heard which also gives the songs more of a raw feeling while the vocals are mostly high pitched black metal screams.
Elements of doom metal are also added into the slower sections of the album while the songs also add in a good mixture of slow, mid paced and fast parts. At times the music also adds in some psychedelic touches along with the guitar solos and leads also being done in a very dark yet melodic style as well as a couple of tracks also being very long and epic in length, some of the vocals also add in sludge style screams and clean playing can also be heard briefly.
Kalmen plays a musical style that takes black metal and mixes it with the darker side of doom metal to create a sound of their own. The production sounds very professional while the lyrics cover death, pain and occultism themes.
In my opinion Kalmen are a very great sounding hypnotic mixture of black and doom metal and if you are a fan of those musical genres, you should check out this band. RECOMMENDED TRACKS INCLUDE "Earthbound" "Moon" and "Uroboros". 8 out of 10.