Saturday, July 4, 2009

Saturday Song to Do Bong Rips To

Since I have no interest in the either the 4th of July or it's fireworks here's something to actually get excited about.
I am very admittedly not a big fan of black metal. There's not much to it that's appealing beyond the fantastic monikers those guys use. A lot of the nuances that people love about it are the things that agitate my ears. Separately a lot of the single characteristics are things underground music fans strive to keep pure in their respective music selection; hyper fast blastbeats, tremelo picking, harsh or rough production from little to no budget, vast and epic atmosphere, etc. But when combined it makes for an auditory rectal hemorrhage and I just can't get into that. But somehow Krallice seem to pull it all off without being tedious. All the songs on their album are long, averaging ten minutes long, with the last being fifteen and half minutes. The little I know about most black metal tells me these guys should be playing atmospheric/symphonic black metal with copious amounts of samples and keyboards. And there should be like six guys in the band. However Krallice was recorded by the Bloody Panda drummer, and the guys from Orthelm and Behold...the Arctopus/Dysthermia on guitar and bass respectively so you know these guys are not fucking around with some pussy metal. This is soaring, vast, epic black metal with a good amount of old fashioned shredding, moving cymbal crashes and a very strange upbeat rhythm that will keep you moving your head or finger tapping until the music stops. For being a desolate and bleak form of music, this shit is very uplifting. It reminds me of a fast Mouth of the Architect from two states east or a distant cousin of Wolves In the Throne Room despite how many comparisons I see to early Burzum and Ulver. You can hear the New York element permeate from these guys. This isn't super techy/prog instrumental metal that you're used to hearing from these guys, it's the concrete jungle oozing out of wailed vocals and the airy cacophony that is their wall of sound. For every thousand band whose sound is razor thin, these guys have a full, rocking sound.



Solar winds breed laceration.