Premiere: Karla Kvlt ‘Thunderhunter’ – Drops This Friday, 21st Feb via Exile On Mainstream
Seekers of the heavy, the hazy, and the hypnotic, pay attention as today the air vibrates with something primal. The trio, known only as Karla Kvlt, emerges from the shadows, dragging a wall of sound so dense it bends time itself.
Their debut, Thunderhunter, is not just a collection of seven songs, it’s a celestial storm, a ritual, a descent into a dream where drone meets doom and shoegaze swirls like smoke over scorched earth.
About the album, the band as a whole says, ‘This record offers you a glimpse of our family portrait. Listen, consume it, swallow it, and carry it forward within your souls. Together, we want to embrace the chaos, the beauty, and the raw power of existence. Thunderhunter is more than just music. It’s a calling’.
While Lee Beamish in his recent review stated that Karla Kvlt ‘are here to crush your very soul with a sonic chokehold that will literally drain the spirit right out of you’.
Are you ready to be haunted by the thunder? Brace yourselves. The ritual begins by clicking play below…
More On Karla Kvlt & ‘Thunderhunter’
Karla Kvlt marks the return of Markus E. Lipka, the driving guitar force behind 1990s German alternative/noise rock heroes Eisenvater. The alternative music scene in the 1990s vibrantly questioned traditional listening approaches and came up with some of the most interesting concepts in that sense.
While it was bands like Melvins, Unsane, Swans, and Cop Shoot Cop on the US side of the pond, on the European side, one of the bands was Eisenvater, and the guitar-based orchestra Rossburger Report that evolved from it.
Eisenvater’s live shows remain legendary, transcending gatherings, which among lovers of the extremes have a cult status and are of the kind that everybody claims to have been there.
Lipka is joined in Karla Kvlt by his son Johann Wientjes on drums and his daughter-in-law, Teresa Matilda Curtens, on bass and vocals – both also in Melting Palms. Together, the trio delivers a raw and monolithic debut album that is unique in style and approach with Thunderhunter.
The beats and riffs on Thunderhunter are unfathomably heavy, the vocals bell-like, fragile, and intense. Karla Kvlt’s music is dense, immersive, but also beautiful – like a plant fighting its way through a concrete slab, like the tides, following a precise and unstoppable rhythm that can be as destructive as it is capable of revealing beauty in the next moment, offering a view of something new.
Based on drone, doom, sludge, noise and post-rock, the band creates monolithic and hypnotic tracks on Thunderhunter, which was recorded in a strictly D.I.Y. manner in Hamburg. Here, the band infuses seemingly incompatible styles of sludge/doom and dream pop; Both concepts come together within Karla Kvlt in an amalgamation of brutal beauty.
Thunderhunter Tracklist:
01. Karma
02. Temple
03. Swallowed
04. Magna mater
05. Mun kvlta
06. Hekate
07. Thunderhunter
Karla Kvlt is:
Markus E. Lipka – Guitar, Guitar Soundscapes, Voice
Teresa Matilda Curtens – Bass, Vocals
Johann Wientjes – Drums, Synth Soundscapes
Karla Kvlt Live Dates:
25/04/2025 – Elbdeichstudio – Hamburg, DE [Album Release Show]
30/04/2025 – Karnak – Kassel, DE
07/06/2025 – Z-Bau – Nürnberg, DE w/ Caspar Brötzmann Massaker
19/09/2025 – UT Connewitz – Leipzig, DE
20/09/2025 – Neue Zukunft – Berlin, DE
Thunderhunter, the debut album from the formidable doom and drone trio Karla Kvlt, releases this Friday, 21st February, through Exile On Mainstream. Pre-orders are available now over on the labels webstore.
Label: Exile On Mainstream Records
Band Links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Instagram
