"This is like a normal Sunday dinner at my girlfriend's parents' house," Kvelertak frontman Erlend Hjelvik enthuses. "Now I know a place where we can stop on tour when we're homesick."
The hirsute howler and his mustachioed guitarist, Vidar Landa, are sitting at a table inside Nordic Delicacies, a Scandinavian-themed deli in Brooklyn, New York. The Norwegian musicians, whose band name is pronounced just how it looks and translates to "chokehold," are in the Big Apple promoting their manic-sounding new album, Meir (translation: "more") and are delighted to see some reminders of home. The shop's owners have prepared a literal smörgåsbord of food from the fjords. Our plate contains kumle, or potato dumplings that have been stuffed with bacon, two kinds of sausage, meatballs in brown sauce, homemade fishcakes, and labskaus. "It's like a stew with potatoes, and what kind of meat is it? I can't remember," Hjelvik says of the last item. "I just eat it and don't think too much about what's inside that particular dish." Landa, who is vegetarian, orders some bread with Norway's popular caramelized "brown cheese."
Since releasing their self-titled debut in 2010, Kvelertak have become the biggest overnight success to emerge from Norway's rock scene since A-ha. Produced by Converge guitarist Kurt Ballou, and with cover art painted by Baroness vocalist-guitarist and lauded visual artist John Baizley (both reprised these roles for the group's new one), their debut would go on to win Kvelertak two of their homeland's prestigious Spellemannprisen, Norway's equivalent to a Grammy, for Best Rock Album and Newcomer of the Year. The LP has since earned them a gold record in Norway, as well, and none other than Foo Fighter Dave Grohl presented it to the sextet.
But according to Landa, Kvelertak have barely had a chance to appreciate their achievements. "We've been constantly touring all over the world," the guitarist says, noting they've taken only two months off since releasing their debut. "We haven't had time to think about anything other than playing good shows."
Specifically, the night they won their Spellemann awards is a hazy blur to the group. Earlier that day, Hjelvik had picked up their visas for their first U.S. tour and gone to Burger King for a bite. "While I was eating, someone came from behind and took my backpack with all the passports in it," he recalls. "It was crazy. After that, I just drank too much and got stressed out." At the ceremony, the singer's drinking caught up with him.
"When we were running up to accept the award, I was jumping on Erlend's back and he was a bit too drunk and he just fell over," Landa says. "Next thing I know, on the way up to the stage, I see Erlend getting up and he just rips his shirt off."
"In our acceptance speech, I told the audience about a reward for the passports," Hjelvik says with an embarrassed laugh. "Next time, I'll be sober and wearing a suit just to make up for the appearance."
Landa says he doesn't remember much about the day Grohl gave them their plaque either, other than the fact it was the biggest crowd they'd played for, opening for the Foo Fighters in front of 22,000 people, and that the Crown Prince of Norway approached them backstage to profess his Kvelertak fandom.
But somewhere amid all the awards and adulation, the band managed to assemble a successor worthy of its ballyhooed debut. Meir lives up to its title, by amplifying the Kvelertak's best parts: the poppy sing-alongs ("Bruane Brenn"), the heavy guitar grooves ("Underto"), the euphoric blasts of black metal ("Spring Fra Livet"), the change-on-a-dime, schizophrenic genre shifts (every song). With native-tongue lyrics that span topics like "an owl spirit that possesses you" and "an antichrist-type figure that comes out of a black hole and down to earth and destroys everything," as Hjelvik describes them, the album feels something like an enjoyable nervous breakdown. "A big part of our sound is that it should be fun to listen to," Landa says.
It's clear from our lunch—especially from the manner in which Hjelvik and Landa seem to laugh constantly—that Kvelertak are indeed a band that likes to have fun, and moreover one that is grateful for the whirlwind of accomplishments it has experienced so far. "It's just crazy how everything fell into place," the singer says. "You feel like the luckiest man in the world at the time."
Right now, though, the band is most grateful just to have had enough noshes to fill them up.
"All of the food was good," Hjelvik says. "My favorite is definitely the kumle. It's just the kind of food that is so filling."
"Yeah, I need to go to sleep now," Landa says.
"In Norway, you have this for Sunday dinner, and then you nap."
