Release Date September 11th, 2026
Format Digital/CD
Genre Black/Death Metal
Origin Germany
HKSPK began in Frankfurt an der Oder, Brandenburg, in 2023. From 2023 until 2026, the band operated as Hello Kitti Scum Porn Killer, then shortened its name to Hkspk. Its debut album, "Holy Scum", arrived in 2024, followed by the 2025 EP "The Human Butcher". "Heimkehr" is its second full length release. HKSPK has appeared with Asagraum, Enisum and Waldgeflüster, alongside dates at M.U.R. Open Air, Godless Mountain Open Air and Summer Ends, plus a headline set in Brno. Those appearances place the band within the independent German extreme metal circuit, where club shows, festival slots and support dates form the bulk of its live history.
Across eight songs and only 25 minutes, "Heimkehr" combines black metal coldness with death metal heft, melodic leads, doom pacing, atmospheric expansion and brief eruptions of punk, hardcore and thrash. All recording, mixing, mastering and production were handled by HKSPK, with Steffen
Schmolke responsible for the cover artwork. The guitars sit forward with a wiry rasp, the drums strike with physical impact, and the vocals shift between high pitched screams and deeper death metal tones. Separation remains adequate, although faster stretches occasionally blur at their edges.
The writing pivots between melody, blast driven attack, trudging doom and punk speed, producing a restless sequence whose changes add contrast without turning the album into random genre hopping. A few transitions arrive too abruptly, and several riffs disappear before reaching their full potential, symptoms of an album packed into a runtime that sometimes constricts its own ideas. The lyric range covers war, panic, psychological collapse, revenge, broken comradeship, failed shows and black humor, drawing from personal events, close relationships and freely reshaped historical motifs.
The title turns homecoming into damaged return. Safety has evaporated, past violence remains present, and arrival offers no repair, giving the songs a common emotional direction despite their varied subjects. Taken together, "Heimkehr" is a grim and compact second album with credible riffing, tense atmosphere and enough stylistic range to stay engaging; its short span and clipped transitions hold several ideas below the level their initial spark suggests.
|7.5
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