Pøltergeist ‘Nachtmusik’ Out Now

As Edgar Allan Poe once noted in The Masque Of The Red Death, “there are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion” – it was exactly these that Kalen Baker reached for – in splendid isolation in Grande Prairie, Alberta – at the very genesis of Pøltergeist, whilst fashioning the sepulchral serenades which would form his new band’s mighty statement of intent ‘Nachtmusik’.
 
Having played in the traditional metal band Whyte Diamond in Calgary in his teens, Baker moved 450 miles away for work in late 2019. “It was harsh and isolating being away from the Calgary scene, and I didn’t end up meeting many musicians who were into the same stuff as me” he notes. “I started recording demos alone in the room I was renting and put them on Bandcamp. I didn’t expect much from it, I just wanted a way to make music”.
 
This isolation was exacerbated by the pandemic, and coincided with a period in which Baker’s tastes were broadening from the epic metallic chills he’d grown up on into darker quarters. Having always had a penchant for the mystical metallic strains of Angel Witch, Cauldron and Blue Öyster Cult, he found himself moved by both Vancouver contemporary post-punk act Spectres and the epochal British melancholia of The Chameleons’ ‘Script From The Bridge’, not to mention gothic and post-punk legends like Sisters Of Mercy and The Sound, and paradigms of the ethereal like Cocteau Twins, Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine.
 
“I consider us first and foremost a Post-Punk band, but heavy metal will always play an important role” says Kalen, citing the likes of In Solitude, Unto Others and Tribulation as bands who’ve explored the hinterlands between the two worlds. “When I got really into Goth Rock, one thing I noticed was that it was just as cold and bleak as black metal but in a different way”.

Whilst the like of the driving ‘Burning Sword’ and ‘Ethereal Nightmare’ may bear the ghoulish atmosphere of deathrock fury past, they’re just as riven with the epic bravura and melodic salvation of the finest NWOBHM vintage, as well as possessing an emotional core that transposes the sound and fury to a contemporary world.

Bandcamp