CD review: 'In Light of Dark Days'

CD review: 'In Light of Dark Days' - Metal Invader

No one can deny that in recent years it’s common for extreme bands to fuse the Death Metal genre with other genres. Most of the times, this union proves to be a successful one, as the overall results exceed our expectations, by delivering something different and oftenly unique, yet pleasing to our ears.

Following this path, today we’ll be dealing with a band called The Crawling, coming from Lisburn, Northern Ireland. This three-piece band has been active since 2014 and so far has released a single (“Chocking on Concrete”, 2015) and an EP entitled “In Light of Dark Days”, which is our deal here. It consists of three tracks, “The Right to Crawl”, “End of the Rope” and “Catatonic”, having a total runtime of 20 minutes.

“In Light of Dark Days” oozes anger, disgust with life and a profound will to dwell in madness and psychological instability. The Crawling managed to combine Sweden’s Melodic Death Metal with Doom passages and fierce vocals. The riffs used vary in rhythms and heaviness; there are moments when the guitars are so slow and heavy as a ton of concrete and moments when the fast riffing – combining both Black and Death Metal techniques – increases your heart beat. The compositions actually have a strong influence quality, i.e. they can speak to you, grab you by the hand and lead you to a dark, unapproachable place, away from any human contact. Or at least, that’s what I felt. Lyrically speaking, the themes used by the band and their way of delivering their thoughts are powerful; everything is boosted by the excellent vocal performance and the to-the-point channeling of emotions. The production of the record isn’t top notch or crystal clear, however it manages to efficiently present to us the different aspects of each track.

Hopefully we’ll listen to a complete, full length effort soon, as the samples we got from the band’s single and EP are worth our investments. Check them out; “In Light of Dark Days” will definitely leave you satisfied.

4/6

Metal Invader

Comments

CD review: 'Anatomy Of Loss' - Demonszone

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After hearing the last few songs of XII boar, I meandered over to the New Blood tent to catch the last bit of The Crawling (8) . Having a kind of doom sound mixed with death metal vocals, I was suitably impressed by them. The crowd present for them seemed to be too with a lot of folk banging their heads or fist pumping the air. Bloodstock 2016 – Friday (James’s view) The Moshville Times

CD review: 'Anatomy Of Loss' - GBHBL

Anatomy of Loss is all about mixing black metal vocals & that feeling of cold isolation with doom-laden riffs & beats. An Immaculate Deception brings all those sounds & adds a dirty, raw sound resulting in a strong opener. Let down only by its length, it gets a bit repetitive after a while. Poison Orange is a serious cut above though, its riffs dipped in the blackest tar & vocals ripped straight out of the devil’s mouth. This is some seriously doom-heavy stuff & even when things are sped up it just results in an even harder sound. What makes Anatomy of Loss such a surprising listen though is the variety in music on show. Acid on my Skin has a lovely upbeat melody only changing stance to a heavier effort during the choruses. It’s got some of the best drumming on the entire album & the vocals are simply amazing here. A hell of a song, a hell of an album. The variety continues with the stunning All Our Failings & The Right to Crawl. A duo that keep things me...

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