While still a fairly recent band, having released their first musical output roughly a decade ago now, Swedish progressive metallers Karmanjakah were quick to find their own sound and identity within their niche of progressive heavy music. Most notably with their 2021 debut album A Book About Itself which combined accessible melody with challenging technicality and heaviness, an assemblage they would further refine in 2023 with their Ancient Skills EP, marking even more of a turning point in the trajectory of their style where heaviness, technicality, feel and soothing soundscapes became undiscernable from each other, forming one single cohesive sound and overall vision unlike anything else despite some of its original roots being crystal clear.
Diamond Morning is very much a natural next step forward following the latest iteration of the sound Karmanjakah had presented with Ancient Skills, and it sees them make themselves even more at home within this little corner of heaven they have carved out amidst a niche that thrives in either searching for utmost sonic extremity or jarringly dense abstraction.
While album opener ‘Dove’ kicks things off with high energy in dramatic fashion with its powerful combination of blast beats and dissonant bended tremolo riff, vocalist Jonas Lundquist immediately introduces the band’s skillful usage and understanding of dynamics and contrasts by setting his soaring clean vocals against the maelstrom conjured by his band mates. The combination of Lundquist’s impassioned vocals and guitarist Viggo Örsan’s thall influenced style of playing, harkening back to some of the more graciously sorrowful moments in Vildhjarta‘s discography, create an incredibly evocative and effective combination. Very often in Karmanjakah‘s songwriting, it’s as though guitar and vocals work off each other to convey heartfelt feelings of either joy, sorrow or nostalgia.
‘Eyes seeing eyes’ builds up tension beautifully with a delicate piano arrangement before the rhythm section gradually highlights the emotional impact at the core of the band’s music, with every hit of Sebastian Brydniak’s drum kit feeling purposeful and the hefty low-end provided by bassist Lukas Ohlsson giving a “larger than life” feel to songs that tend to be rather anchored in personal, intimate scales of introspection. Meanwhile, ‘Sun, astray’ might just be the happiest sounding thall tune you’ll ever lay your ears upon despite its jagged, somber main motif ; whenever the guitar ascends to those high-pitched bends as the rest of the band chimes in together, it truly is the sonic equivalent of sun rays finally piercing through persistent clouds giving way to the optimistic prospect of a cerulean sky. As a short, mostly instrumental interlude, ‘Moon, astray’ throws the unexpected curveball of incorporating hip-hop/slam poetry style vocals over its atmospheric background of acoustic guitars. A surprising addition that does not interrupt or stand out from the album’s seamless flow and will be repeated again later on with ‘Diamond art’.
On longer tracks such as ‘Thousand Horns’ or ‘Diamond Train’, Karmanjakah are able to show off their more dramatic prog metal side while flexing their musical versatility even more. Be it the acoustic barre chords of ‘Thousand horns’ morphing into a vicious, black metal-esque onslaught punctuated by dissonant string bends and in turn, blossoming into a textured, sprawling epic that brings to mind modern prog metal staples such as Leprous or Tesseract, or the traditional Indian folk music-inspired riffs in the closing track ‘Diamond Train’, which mimic a sitar. Both longer tracks are separated by two short subsequent instrumentals, ‘Sapphire’ and ‘Ruby’, which display different facets of Karmanjakah‘s musical experimentation, with one being more playful in its genre-mashing and the other highlighting the band’s penchant for building atmosphere and soundscaping.
The album concludes with a “Diamond trilogy” made of the aforementioned interlude ‘Diamond art’ and progressive closer ‘Diamond train’, spearheaded by the album’s titular track, which contains arguably one of the album’s best riffs with serious earworm potential. Groove, feel, and technical prowess feel balanced at all times, and there isn’t a single moment on Diamond Morning that feels opaque by design in terms of songwriting; on the contrary, Karmanjakah manage to effortlessly invite listeners into their own unique vision with dexterity and tenderheartedness.
“The musical equivalent of a warm embrace”
While the idea of an “indie thall” band might sound ridiculous on paper, in its execution on their new album Diamond Morning, Karmanjakah might have just become the world’s first band to inherit such an accolade and do so convincingly. A big part of the magic behind the band’s music and style is how easily and naturally approachable they are, despite coming from a corner of niche music that tends to be the exact opposite. Any listener unfamiliar with words such as “Meshuggah”, “Vildhjarta”, let alone “djent” or “thall” could easily immerse themselves into what Karmanjakah have to offer on Diamond Morning while also being praised and championed by superfans of the genre or established taste makers known for championing this side of heavy music.
Ultimately, after the long, cold dark months of winter, Diamond Morning is the musical equivalent of a warm embrace and the promise of, if not better, at least sunnier days ahead, while also taking a specific sub-genre with a well-established set of rules and using those codifications in a completely different context to offer new possibilities when the rules are flipped over their heads. It’s still very much dawn for the Swedes of Karmanjakah, and the sun is burning bright for them as we listeners bask in its glow, surely to be joined by many new curious or convinced ears following their tour in support of Humanity’s Last Breath and Vildhjarta at the end of this year.