Kohma – A Final Storm

April 14, 2010 • Selective Notes

As I've mentioned, I like listening to and talking about Cult of Luna quite a bit, so naturally I'm a fan of Khoma, a sort of sister band made up of two of Cult of Luna's guitarists and an unrelated vocalist (I'm not sure who plays bass and drums, to be honest). I was instantly enamored by their second album The Second Wave and its fusion of Cult of Luna's heavy, doomy sludge and a sort of alt-rock sound, two things that seem like they wouldn't naturally go together but somehow Khoma manages to pull off. Their third album A Final Storm is more on the same theme, which is both a good and a bad thing.

In fact, one could argue that this is the exact same album as The Second Wave. Sure, the riffs are technically different, but it's still all the same structure: melodramatic, wall-of-sound choruses sandwiched by plodding and calm verses driven by the occasional violin or piano, with a bit more squeaky-clean production than your average Cult of Luna album. While I still like The Second Wave a lot, by this point the novelty has worn off a bit and The Final Storm is a little tiring. Simply put, there's nothing new here—any song here could easily have gone on the last album, except that few of them are very memorable because they are all so similar.

I don't want to make it seem like I dislike this album, though; the individual songs are mostly quite good—"Osiris" is a standout track, with a great sound: the fast riffs and clever chord changes remind me of the best parts of The Second Wave. "Mist" is another of my favorites, with its somber background vocals and ambient strings. The rhythms can get nicely groovy, too, which works well with their sound. If I had one complaint about the sound itself, it's the vocals—they're not terrible, but they're a little obnoxious and there is far too much singing overall. It's a minor complaint, though.

But even if this album succeeds at the song-by-song level, on the whole I'm not that excited. It's just more of the same thing from Khoma, a sound that I'd rather get from their last album (or, heck, Cult of Luna—why beat around the bush?). It's a good album to throw on every once in a long while, but it simply does not have the staying power it should, and Khoma needs to start branching out a bit more if they are to release anything after this.

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