REVIEW: God Root & Manikineter, "“The Dirt Will Reclaim All It Has Lost”

By: Mark Ambrose

Album Type: Split 
Date Released: 01/06/2019
Label: Independent

"The Dirt Will Reclaim All It Has Lost" CS//DD track listing

1). God Root, Decay is a Womb

2). God Root, Where Life Springs Forth

3). Manikineter, We Don’t Remember Asking

4). Manikineter, Shoot the Chalice (Re-Mixed)

The Review:

Writing about metal, especially the “extreme” spectrum of metal, you don’t necessarily get to reflect on melodic beauty. I’d probably cringe if I had to look at a diagram of how often I remark on the brutality, the malevolence, the dissonance and filthy tones of the releases I get sucked into.  But the most effective moments of tension, for me at least, is hearing a group of capable musicians show off their melodic prowess and then break it into a million writhing pieces.  Maybe that’s what’s drawn me to God Root since their self-titled debut; maybe that’s what has me more excited for what they WILL be doing with each new release. It’s definitely what has me hooked on their latest, long awaited follow-up to “Salt and Rot”.  With fellow Philly cross-genre mastermind Manikineter, God Root explore the beauty in physical corruption on “The Dirt Will Reclaim All It Has Lost” by fusing harmonic vocals and harsh noise, soaring leads and thrashing low end, offering a glimpse of a band that’s thoroughly progressive but undeniably catchy.

The main course here is “Decay is a Womb”, a nine-minute opus that opens with thoroughly monastic, multi-part harmonies, crackling minor key guitar chords, and pulsing, tribal drumming.  The extreme low end vocals, which directly nod to Tuvan throat singing, are beautifully countered by the vocal triad of Joe Hues (guitar), Ross Bradley (bass) and Fred Grabosky, before the shrill noise acrobatics of Jordan Stiff and dual guitar lines of Hues and Kieth Riecke kick in.  There’s some subtle industrial crunch running through the sludge but the rhythm is never stiff.  It manages to pulsate with the biological metaphors at play.  With an intensity that vacillates between agony and jubilation, the nameless narrator intones: “I yield to the heat of decay / Rebirth between the black astral plane / In loam, a time lapse churns my body back to the earth / Swallow me. Rip me away”. It never get back to the delicacy of the opening, but the melody coursing through the song makes the furious eruption of instrumental noise and wordless screams at the end that much more gratifying.

The instrumental “bonus track” of the digital download, “Where Life Springs Forth” is an interesting ambient palate cleanser.  After the life/death/decay/rebirth themes of the first track, the synth-electronic soundscape had me thinking about Godflesh at Justin Broadrick’s most industrial moments and Eraserhead sets blasted by radiation.  This echoey nightmare doesn’t seem to evoke any humanity, or any life whatsoever.  This extended transition is a perfect bridge to Manikineter’s post-apocalyptic avant garde noise wizardry.

“We Don’t Remember Asking” opens as a near inverse of “Decay is a Womb” – a single voice intones a chant, but this isn’t the unifying uplift of “Decay” – this is quavering, extended, looping into inhuman manipulations while an intensely distorted voice rambles under layers of static.  The voice crackles on for minutes at a time, a ghost in the machine, until it’s buried under layers of synth and drum machines.  Synth bass and sparse drum machine fills emerge from the background before Carl Kavorkian’s lyrics flow out like missives from a numbers station.  With the mechanized, steady pattern of his words, it almost feels safely repetitive until a shrieking voice breaks out, describing horrific surreal images: “Despot’s Chest poked, brain in sight thru nose” really stuck with me in a viscerally unsettling way.

Manikineter’s bonus track here, “Shoot the Chalice (Re-Mixed)” is a deeply distressing noise nightmare.  If God Root’s purely instrumental track toyed with post-humanism, this is a straight out antinatalist dirge.  If there’s anything vaguely biological here, it’s the buzzing of carrion flies, the shrieks of metal and machinery that evokes pure agony, the endless looping of synthesized screams forever and ever amen.  This is advanced level noise mastery here with occasional glowing notes thrown in above the miasma.  True disciples of auditory pain will love this – others may be left cradling their precious eardrums.

As a whole, “The Dirt Will Reclaim All It Has Lost” functions how the best splits always do – it pulled me in with one thing I love and introduced me to something else I’d love to learn more about.  The fact that it does so in a cross-genre way is even more exciting and, frankly, something more “EXTREME METAL” bands should consider.  The palettes of so many seemingly disparate scenes are cross pollinating and colliding in ways that go far beyond the simplified “rap meets metal!” cover stories that flooded Hit Parader and a million other shitty magazines that littered my floor as a seventh grader.  Instead, we have two really interesting, important underground musicians on the cusp of even bigger things, both ruminating on themes of decay, loss, death, and chaos.  The fact that I want to see the ways they intersect and diverge beyond this record means I can only see this brief experiment as an unmitigated success.

“The Dirt Will Reclaim All It Has Lost” is available HERE

Band info: godroot.bandcamp || facebook.godroot || manikineter.bandcamp || facebook.manikineter

ALBUM REVIEW: AORATOS, "Gods Without Name"

By: Mark Ambrose

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 22/03/2019

Label: Debemur Morti Productions

“Gods Without Name” CD//DD//LP track listing

1). Parallax I

2). Holy Mother of Terror

3). Of Harvest, Scythe and Sickle Moon

4). Gods Without Name

5). Thresher

6). The Watcher on the Threshold

7). Prayer of Abjection

8). Dread Spirit of the Place

9). Parallax II

The Review:

There must be other US black metal artists out there delivering atmospheric, occult, disturbing hymns to elder gods.  But between Akhlys, Nightbringer, and now AORATOS, one-man powerhouse Naas Alcameth (aka Kyle Spanswick) has seemingly cornered the market on truly grim, pitch black metal.  Naas is one of the most prolific one-man powerhouses in black metal, which (SoundCloud rappers notwithstanding) may be the most dominant “solo” genre of the moment.  You’d be forgiven for assuming so much output from one songwriter would be indistinguishable or, at worst, repetitive, but his latest work as AORATOS should shut up any naysayers: Naas Alcameth has a seemingly boundless well of interesting and diverse offerings to the darkness.

As a thematic departure from his prior work, AORATOS seems less focused on the introspective dreamscapes of Akhlys or the arcane magickal workings of Nightbringer. Instead, AORATOS is an earthier turn to primordial worship.  The “group’s” promotional images feature two hooded, robed figures lurking near a dilapidated farmhouse, one holding an old-fashioned pitchfork.  But this isn’t some hokey devilry – this feels like some cult roots, some ancient hearth magic. 

Naas’s lyrics on “Of Harvest, Scythe, and Sickle Moon” paint a picture of medieval peasant life supplemented by rootsy paganism: “I’ve ripped my hair and torn my skin / to get my master’s harvest in / I’ve reeved all flesh for the mighty dead / and blooded the field neath the moon of red.” There’s an unrelenting drive towards some high-minded ancient ancestry in a lot of black metal (often towards elitism or, in some sinister circumstances, racial purity). This feels like a raw and honest departure – few of us were descended from pseudo-elven kings and warriors, but our low forbears may have enjoyed a dark communion without even being able to read.  In “Gods Without Name”, Naas invokes spirits that carried weight for generations without the burden of holy scriptures or grimoires: “God of the attic, cellar and wheel. God of the shed, abbatoir and mill. God of the edge, grotto and grove. Dark gods of the plot to whom I’m betrothed.”

Naas himself handles all the instrumental duties (guitars and synth), as well as lead vocals, while Nox Corvus (main man of ANOTHER solo black metal project, Serpent of the Black Forest) offers some guitar work and backing vocals.  Menthor, drummer of Nightbringer, Necrosadist, and others, is the standard type of black metal powerhouse you need on an album so expansive sounding. 

Naas has layers upon layers of instrumentation and vocals, creating a chorus of tortured but distinguishable shrieks and howls.  The guitars vary between shimmering but almost out-of-tune picking (which is way more unsettling than my description would make it seem), massive chords, and tremolo picking that will make the hairs on your neck stand up.  Menthor’s precise double kick work and blast beats is invigorating, while the sparse, doomy crashes of “Dead Spirit of the Place” punctuates the nightmarish, nearly ambient closer before launching into full on black metal assault: one assumes Frost would be proud, and don’t get me wrong, this is still remarkably evil sounding.  

Naas isn’t writing an anthropological dissertation – he’s subverting the expectations of what themes carry black metal.  It’s smart but the plain descriptions of superstitions and homespun occult practice are sincere and totally unpretentious.  There’s something undeniably chilling when Naas howls “I am the thresher ‘neath the moon’s baleful eye! I am the thresher, the wolf in the rye!”  If this is the worship music of the hearth magician, consider me converted.

“Gods Without Name” is available HERE

Band info: bandcamp

ALBUM REVIEW: Inter Arma, "Sulphur English"

By: Mark Ambrose

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 12/04/2019

Label: Relapse Records

The triple guitar attacks, rippling blast beats, and ambient drones may make your skin crawl one moment, before taking your breath away with a moment of acoustic beauty.  If there’s a record coming this year that can outdo this one, I’m more than happy to listen.  But for now, Inter Arma stands head and shoulders above the rest

“Sulphur English” CD//DD//2LPTrack listing

1). Bumgardner

2). A Waxen Sea

3). Citadel

4). Howling Lands

5). Stillness

6). Observances of the Path

7). The Atavist’s Meridien

8). Blood on the Lupines

9). Sulphur English

The Review:

To call Inter Arma one of the standout groups in current metal feels like an understatement:  while they’ve been a solid doomy/sludgy/deathy collective since their debut, “Sundown”, their releases with Relapse Records, starting with 2013’s “Sky Burial”, have been increasingly complex, challenging, and moving. Their latest, “Sulphur English”, is yet another high water mark and an early contender for “year’s best”.

Like the best metal “intro” tracks, “Bumgardner” is atmospheric and pummeling leadup to the chaos and violence to follow.  The rolling drumbeats and mounting static lead right into the gargantuan central riff of “A Waxen Sea”.  You might imagine, with the churning, tidal instrumentation pervading the track, the lyrics would be sheer nihilism, but Inter Arma is a group that effortlessly embraces the terrifying and the sublime.  Some of the lyrics here are practically Wordsworthian: “The morning rises guardedly / Over a stirring countryside / Illuminating the far off sea. / A waxen shield, horizon’s protector.”  It isn’t so much pretty, as it is fundamentally stirring.  

“Citadel” turns toward grimness and decay, referring to the seasons spoiling, wounds “of corporeal and psychic root” that hold the narrator captive.  But Inter Arma keeps turning away from the metallic tropes of abject misery – while there is strife, lead singer Mike Paparo intones that, “A fire burns deep in the citadel of my heart”. Meanwhile, Steven Russell and Trey Dalton swap some of the most face-melting guitar leads and menacing harmonies this side of a Morbid Angel record.

It’s hard not to dissect each song at length – “Howling Lands” is like a death rock dirge crossed with a tribal war dance, highlighting the muscular power that drummer/multi-instrumentalist TJ Childers brings to the band. Plus, between “Howling Lands” and “Stillness”, Paparo pulls off a convincing gothic baritone that occasionally sounds like Danzig at his sweaty, howling best.

“Observances of the Path” serves as an interlude from the folk-metal hymnal of “Stillness” to the complex, polyrhythmic cacophony of “The Atavist’s Meridian”.  For nearly half the song’s twelve minutes, it builds in tension, never approaching a major key or melodic reprieve.  A mid-song interlude lulls the listener into a false sense of security, interspersing quieter, looser guitar picking with spoken word snippets, before gradually building to a violent climax that sounds like Childers is pummeling every drum in the western hemisphere.  I heard this track while driving through catastrophic rain and it was one of the most distressing, terrifying, and exhilarating listens I’ve had in a while – sometimes things just line up perfectly.

“Blood on the Lupines” may be the most “doom” track on the record, at least in terms of tempo and scorching, filthy bass tone courtesy of Joe Kerkes.  But the psychedelic guitar tones occasionally evoke Pink Floyd and early King Crimson.  Paparo dips into his baritone (now more Peter Steele than Glenn), but still howls and shrieks like he’s possessed by some primal, prehistoric spirit.  Taken in tandem with the closing title track, the demonic fury is a beautiful juxtaposition.  “Sulphur English” closes like a sermon, warning about the “corrupt tongue of imperious fools” and exhorting the crowd to “beware the charlatan”. I’d be tempted to draw current political analogies, but “Sulphur English’s themes echo through time, more Paleolithic than Anthropocene.  

The idea that these charlatans “in threads woven in gilded opulence” seem to emerge in every era is just as haunting as the propulsive, buzzing music that Inter Arma weaves through the track, and the album itself.  The triple guitar attacks, rippling blast beats, and ambient drones may make your skin crawl one moment, before taking your breath away with a moment of acoustic beauty.   “Sulphur English” is a rare record that functions both as a showcase of eclectic and skilled musicianship and a unified, brilliant tome best enjoyed in one prolonged listen.  If there’s a record coming this year that can outdo it, I’m more than happy to listen.  But for now, Inter Arma stands head and shoulders above the rest.

“Sulphur English” is available HERE

Band info: bandcamp || facebook

INTERVIEW: Shadow Woods Festival founder Mary Spiro

By: Mark Ambrose

Last September, hundreds of metal fans took to White Hall, Maryland for the third, and what was quite possibly the final, Shadow Woods Metal Festival.  A three day mashup of camping, workshops, and, most importantly, true underground heavy metal of all stripes, it has quietly become one of the most highly regarded music experiences by those lucky enough to have attended.  When I spoke with festival founder, overseer, music writer (at www.metallomusikum.com) and all around genre veteran Mary Spiro, she was content to lay the Shadow Woods experiment to rest for the time being.  However, in the last year, despite venue changes, date and lineup adjustments, and the myriad headaches of producing a truly independent festival (i.e. NO corporate sponsorships), Shadow Woods IV returns to White Hall Maryland this September 13-16.  Today, THE SLUDGELORD finally presents our interview with Mary from last year’s festivities, as well as her top reasons for attending this year’s festival.

Sl: What made you decide to undertake the massive effort to create a festival like this THREE times, let alone once?

Mary Spiro: Sheer stupidity.  I had attended Stella Natura in 2013.  I had always liked the idea of listening to music outside anyway.  Years ago I had attended a bluegrass festival that had camping and bluegrass in Winfield, KS.  Stella Natura was a nice experience except the year I went it snowed in the middle of it.  Which is still held in September but it snowed in Tahoe National Forest so they lost a day there.  My original idea for this wasn’t something as big as this.  It was more, “Don’t I know somebody who potentially has some property who would let me set up some bands?” or someone with a barn… Just a kind of DIY kind of thing.  Apparently, I don’t know anybody like that so I started hunting around for campsites that you could rent in their entirety.  I just thought it would be fun to get a few bands together.  The tipping point came when I realized I wasn’t going to get this property for a low amount of money.  In order to draw enough people to pay for the expensive property, I was going to have to get bigger bands.  I had done shows in regular venues, but to have an outdoor thing… over the course of eighteen months of planning it just became evident it was going to be a lot more expensive than I’d realized.  You end up realizing you have to get a band that is going to attract a lot more people.  So Midnight was like the Holy Grail band for the first year and we got them!  Every year I feel like the lineup has been amazing.

SL: You said elsewhere that this is an experiment that has run its course.  Has it become too much of a logistical nightmare or do you see it as something you could scale back on?  What’s the future of Shadow Woods?

MS: It’s a number of things.  Superficially, this property is for sale.  If the people who buy it don’t want to host it, that’s a major issue.  Logistically, it is very time consuming and I have a full-time job.  I do this for fun.  I’m not trying to make a name for myself, I’m trying to have fun.  I’m trying to recreate an experience I had at other outdoor music festivals and do it in a way that was appealing to me.  I just literally did it for myself [laughs].  But there’s also another thing… it takes a while for anything to catch on, but I’ve just kind of been amazed that people who live within 30 or 40 minutes aren’t willing to just come out for the day.  They can go home and sleep in their own beds, they don’t have to camp!  And metalheads, American metalheads don’t seem to be very hearty.  They like their creature comforts and hairdryers.  This, to me, seems like backyard camping, while Stella Natura was very rustic.  There were no showers, no running water.  It was rough.  We were in the mountains and then it got cold and it snowed.  And then with the bluegrass festival it was very rustic.  I think it had centralized bathhouses but there were no showers.  And it wasn’t in a very pretty place.  But this is like backyard camping!  There are electrical outlets! 

SL: The setting here is so idyllic, too.

MS: Yeah I’ve come to understand maybe metalheads aren’t all that hearty and just want to go to a fest and stay in a hotel, like Death Fest.  I’ve heard there are some camping fests in the Midwest, like Minnesota.  I guess I was just surprised… We’ve got bands that are singing about nature and trees and shit and people aren’t willing.  Come on, now.  But the local people not willing to come out is just weird to me.  I’m surprised that more people haven’t come, but maybe my expectations are too high.

SL: What do you see as your comfortable level of involvement going forward?  Or are you just focused on getting through this weekend?

MS: I’m hit up all the time by bands who want to do shows in the Baltimore area, and if I like the band I’ll do it, and if I don’t I pass it off to someone more interested.  I’ll still do shows and maybe something like this on a much smaller scale, like on a Friday to Saturday, but it is so expensive.  And I have lost money.  The first two years I’ve lost quite a bit of money so I have to catch up on that.  But on the other hand I’ve had private individuals contribute a lot of money.  So that’s shocking to me that people would be willing to do that sort of thing.

What were your “gateway bands” for heavy music?

MS: So, I’m very old.  I’m 53 years old.  I’ve been listening to music of all kinds for a really long time.  The original band when I was 13 was KISS.  Is that corpsepaint?  I don’t know.  And I got into Metallica when they were popular, when they were coming around in the 80s.  I’ve went along with it, but I also had a family and raised kids and had to scale back my involvement.  In the last ten years… Enslaved, I’m a big fan.  I love Craft.  And I like very unusual bands like Oranssi Pazuzu.  I like anything that catches my eye.

I think something that’s very interesting to me, a lot of people when they go to music festivals want to see all their favorite bands in one place.  The concept of Shadow Woods was always the opposite of that.  This is where you come to learn about new bands you’ve never heard of before that you didn’t know about.  I think that particular strategy is very difficult for a lot of people.  They think, “Why would I go see a bunch of bands I don’t know?”  I think there are a lot people who aren’t willing to discover new music like that.

SL: For people willing to discover, you end up getting a lot of excellent stuff.  I had never heard Sloth Herder or Erlkonig before but you put them on an equal footing with bands like Panopticon or Vastum or Woe and suddenly I’ve found two great bands I would have never discovered before this weekend, even with all the stuff we get at the site.

MS: It’s selfish really [laughs].  These are all bands I wanted to see.  I think what’s also cool is I’ve made lifelong friends.  There are people here who think like me about music.

With Shadow Woods IV on the horizon, Mary also took the time to send me her top 3 reasons to attend this year’s festival:

MS: 1. Discover new music. 2. New music handpicked from the best of the underground. Not necessarily trendy or trending but great bands. 3. The "camp" atmosphere. People unleash at SWMF. They reclaim the wildness of childhood and can do so without judgement because everyone is doing it.

The End

Shadow Woods IV opens September 13 at Camp Hidden Valley in White Hall, Maryland.  This year’s acts include Abigail Williams, Xasthur, Cloak, Wolf King, Imperial Triumphant, Ghost Bath, Heavy Temple and many, many more.  

REVIEW: Organ Dealer/ Nerve Grind/ Invertebrate, Split (EP)

By: Mark Ambrose

Album Type: EP

Date Released: 01/07/2018

Label: Night Animal Records

“Organ Dealer/ Nerve Grind/ Invertebrate Split EP” DD//7” track listing

1. Organ Dealer,”Feed”

2. Organ Dealer, “Burn”

3. Organ Dealer, “Remnants”

4. Organ Dealer, “Totality”

5. Organ Dealer, “Contour”

6. Organ Dealer, “Silence”

7. Never Grind, “Bow to Nothingness”

8. Never Grind, Existential Significance

9. Never Grind, Worthless Failure

10. Invertebrate, “Mindgout”

11. Invertebrate, “Fuckface”

12. Invertebrate, “Good for Nothing”

13. Invertebrate, “Choke”

14. Invertebrate, “The Reckoning”

15. Invertebrate, “Chump”

The Review:

               

It’s a god damned golden age of grind.  Even the overlooked gems are getting second lives in the form of reissues (who the hell would expect beautiful, expansive Spazz discographies in multiple formats NOW?), reunions, international festivals, and bona fide geniuses putting out fresh releases constantly.  The deluge of content is overwhelming, but the appreciation for the true forebears quickly wipes out posers and tryhards.  Plus, there’s a certain punky self-effacing attitude that is undeniable about grind – this shit is on the fringes, and not in some right wing edgelord way.  It’s crass, it’s brutal, it’s sometimes silly, but for those who love it, there are few ways better than spending fifteen minutes (or often less) than smashing your way through a grind split.  The best of them have the minute shifts in style and tone that make the genre far more diverse than its harshest critics would have you believe.  And if it’s just a mediocre effort – hell who doesn’t have fifteen minutes to spare?  Thankfully, the three-way collaboration from Organ Dealer, Nerve Grind, and Invertebrate, heralded as an East Coast/West Coast “meeting of the grinds”, is definitely the former: an all-star smashup that offers entry for genre newbies and no holds barred true grind annihilation for the most seasoned veterans.

               

Organ Dealer may be my favorite underground grind band of the moment.  Maybe it’s the hometown pride, maybe it’s the sheer volume of output, but there’s also genuine craft to what they’re releasing – a sometimes mathy, sometimes hardcore balance that makes them stand out on every release.  I’m a fan of the dual vocal style as they employ it here, with guitarist Tom Maher offering guttural backup to Scot Moriarty’s higher register hardcore bark; it’s not necessarily melodic, but there’s a dynamic force and musicality to the way Moriarty spits out (on “Burn”), “You cannot gaze at me! Without me life is naught!” 

The balance of Trevor Gramm’s clear, pristine basswork; the dual guitar riffing of Jeff Knoblauch & Maher; and Eric Schnee’s mind warping drumming start the EP with the breakneck “Feed” and the brutality never relents. 

“Totality” is the most distinctly “mathcore” sounding cut, with Schnee ascending into jazz-metal bodhisattva mode.  When they back off from blast beat pummeling, like on personal fave “Contour”, Organ Dealer slides into a sneering punk swing that just hits me in the perfect way – I wanted to start my own circle pit on mass transit but had to settle for upsetting my seatmate on the bus with excessive headbanging.  “Silence” is a grim standout for me – it’s not “classic” grind, but it’s nasty and heavy, and the perfect bookend to the six stellar tracks Organ Dealer lay down.

               

Nerve Grind go straight for the lizard brain, offering ignorant as fuck deathy grind that doesn’t even crack the two minute mark.  I didn’t have a lyric sheet for this one, but with titles like “Bow to Nothingness”, “Existential Significance”, and “Worthless Failure”, I assume guitarist/vocalist Jeff is bellowing out some truly soul-crushing madness – the perfect match for the downtuned murky progressions.  The drumming by Douglas is that relentless old school blast beat madness that only requires a simple kit but genuine chops that would make black metal Frost wannabes cry into their plastic mead horns.  It’s brutal and short and solid grind.

               

Invertebrate highlight that weird playful grind attitude I really love.  Using key samples and excellent timing, they often made me laugh out loud before launching into misanthropic sludge-inflected grind.  Lyrics like “fucking disgrace / emotions erase / good for nothing / pile of shit” highlight the mantra (if there is one) of this band’s 7 tracks: fuck you AND fuck me, too.  Another power trio, they have a solid vocal interplay by all three members, with one offering a somewhat adenoidal bark that was weirdly satisfying and unique amid the deathy growls and hardcore shouts.  The majority of the tracks are breakneck classic grind, with satisfying forays into sludgy, groove-inflected riffing.  I’d be really interested in seeing them break out more in a full-length, even if it’s just 15 minutes long, too.

               

Overall, this untitled split doesn’t reinvent or redefine anything about grind, but with so many lauded, heavy bands eschewing just what endeared them to metal audiences (the “black” in the “blackgaze” crop, the “metal” in the prog metal glut), Organ Dealer, Nerve Grind and Invertebrate stick to brutal basics and seem all the more remarkable because of the lack of gimmicky bullshit.  When they throw in some unexpected grooves, ease back into a slower tempo, or pepper in some funny sampling, they serve as essential reminders that heavy bands can be innovative and exciting without hopping on the latest bandwagon or hitching themselves to the fads that crest and crash every few years in American metal circles.  These guys are lifers – the fact that they’re excellent musicians is just that much more exciting for anyone who’s been paying attention to the underground.

“Organ Dealer/ Nerve Grind/ Invertebrate Split EP” is available here

Band info: OrganDealer || NerveGrind || Invertebrate

REVIEW: Craft, "White Noise and Black Metal"

By: Mark Ambrose

Album Type: EP

Date Released: 22/06/2018

Label: Season of Mist

With their frenetic guitar work, inspired bits of avant garde songwriting, and bleak lyrics, Craft are dead set on reminding us that the vast majority of existence is a lifeless, black wasteland.  

“White Noise and Black Metal” CD//CS//DD//LP track listing:

1. The Cosmic Sphere Falls

2. Again

3. Undone

4. Tragedy of Pointless Games

5. Darkness Falls

6. Crimson

7. YHVH’s Shadow

8. White Noise

The Review:

               

Summertime black metal is a weird proposition for me.  It’s warm, it’s sunny, everyone is hitting the beach, and, here in the northeastern US, it’s been repugnantly humid.  It feels much more like deathy, sludgy, occasionally grind weather to me.  That deep, swampy rot that makes you want to pass out in the shade somewhere, until the temperature starts to drop at night and the prospect of frost in the morning is suddenly in the air again.  The real beginning of black metal season, in other words.  But occasionally you get something that blasts a frozen gust through the humid misery, showing a glimpse of that endless, cold waste at the heart of black metal.  From what I’ve heard, Immortal’s newest record manages to return the listeners to Blashyrkh, even in the hundred degree days of July.  Less heralded but no less impressive is the latest from Sweden’s Craft, who have been quietly amassing a small but incredible discography in the last twenty years. 

It’s been seven years since Craft laid out a full length, and metal empires have risen and fallen.  It’s appropriate that with opener “The Cosmic Sphere Falls” coalesces around timeless themes: depression, dread, apocalypse, death and destruction.  “It is eternal. It is beyond.”  The winding, interweaving guitar lines, slightly askew time signatures, and whispered/screamed lyrics are hypnotic and terrifying – almost avant garde but simultaneously catchy.  The bass is palpable and there’s nearly no midrange – in my ears a perfect black metal balance.  And while the drumming is amazing, it’s not overly busy.   Lyrically, “Again” is far more harrowing than the icy cold opener.  A description of self-harm descending into self-annihilation, it’s juxtaposed against an undeniably hooky guitar line and rhythmic stomp.  The dual guitar leads of Joakim Karlsson and John Doe, skewing off into discordant tremolo bursts, are sickening, while the double-time bursts are oddly affirming against such miserable themes.

“Undone” solidifies the tension at the core of “White Noise and Black Metal”: personal turmoil and universal chaos.  “Undone” pulls back from the suicidal precipice of “Again”, focusing the speaker’s rage toward a cosmos in need of annihilation.  The tone is appropriately symphonic – spiritually, that is.  This doesn’t go full Dimmu Borgir or anything.  “Tragedy of Pointless Games” trades the epic for the individually misanthropic once again.  It’s a somber dirge that sounds like the best of mid-period Celtic Frost – I even expected some OUGH!s to burst through the gloom.  Instead, singer Nox opines “Awakened and cast into fleshbound pain / Into a tragedy of pointless games,” with such conviction that I felt utterly frozen in the midsummer heat. 

When it feels nearly unbearably grim, “White Noise and Black Metal” shifts toward a black ‘n’ roll banger, “Darkness Falls”.  Somewhat evocative of latter day Satyricon (natch), the first track of side two is a bit of an amalgam of the themes so far, with some creepy otherworldly descriptions sneaking into a grim reality.  But before things can get too fantastical, the true horror emerges at the end: “There's a shadow hanging under a tree / And a rope is a tool to set one free.”  Instrumental track “Crimson” is an interesting dirge, highlighting the musical prowess of Karlsson and Doe, and allowing bassist Phil Cirone’s skillful and restrained work to shine, but it still feels a lot like any other instrumental interlude.

Thankfully the last two tracks may be the best on the record.  “YHVH’s Shadow” is a blasphemous screed that is, once again, catchy as hell, especially in a four on the floor headbanger midsection that may be the most fun on a depressing record I’ve had this year.  The sinewy, sinister lead guitar line was stuck in my head for days after my initial spin of the record, and is some simple, inspired songwriting.  The final track, “White Noise”, is a final kissoff to existence itself – individual or universal, where the human experience is something to be endured, a “distasteful, tiresome thing.”  I should note here that Nox’s delivery is uniformly excellent on the record, but on this track it may be the most intelligible, adding extra heft to the fury.  There’s a dynamic balance between the chugging rhythm guitar and the high end lead work, and a final crescendo that’s so intense it feels like the world itself may be falling to pieces.

Against all expectations, I found myself truly immersed in a black metal record despite the season, despite the warmth, the sun, the muggy misery.  I was reminded that the heat death of the universe is inevitable, that the nature of things is stasis, that death is so, so much longer than the brief bits of living.  “White Noise and Black Metal” is more than a glimpse of winter – it’s a blast of cosmic cold.  With their frenetic guitar work, inspired bits of avant garde songwriting, and bleak lyrics, Craft are dead set on reminding us that the vast majority of existence is a lifeless, black wasteland.  That’s far more chilling than even the darkest Norse myths or winter nights.

“White Noise and Black Metal” is available here

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