The move from a studio collaboration to a full quartet shapes The Astral Maze, the debut album from French instrumental progressive metal band KVÅRK. The album is out now on CD and digital, including all major digital platforms.
Guitarists Eric Lamblot and Christophe Gervasi, longtime friends who formed KVÅRK in Marseille, began the project as a studio collaboration. They released the five-track EP Here Comes Trouble through Tentacles Industries in 2020. Bassist Bruno Morgana and drummer Frédéric Cagnol subsequently completed the quartet, bringing four instrumental voices into real-time interaction while retaining the founders’ detailed, unpredictable writing.
The Astral Maze was introduced through the single “Lost in a Quiet Place.” Beyond that track’s calm, hypnotic opening, the album’s long-form compositions combine unstable rhythms, dissonance and death-metal weight with repetition, atmospheric space and gradual transformation.
With no vocals, the instruments carry the narrative. Recurring patterns build pressure, abrupt changes redirect passages, and other structures emerge gradually. The announcement presents the album as a nonlinear listening experience: “The Astral Maze is not built around a straight route from beginning to end. It asks the listener to enter, lose their bearings and follow the movement.”
The press material places the quartet’s sound between the atmospheric patience of Cloudkicker and Russian Circles, the shifting instrumental force of Night Verses, and the angular dissonance associated with Dysrhythmia. Long Distance Calling also appears among its recommended listening references.
Olivier Reyre recorded The Astral Maze at Onde Source Studio. Armel Aglaée handled mixing, and Johann Meyer mastered the album.
