THE CRAWLING

There’s some great titles on this album and one is ‘An Immaculate Deception’ that possesses some tough and twisting rhythms with a deep dark grunting vocal that you can feel in your gut as it rips your intestines out! Moving on to the next track ‘Poison Orange’ I can almost hear the band laughing when they thought up this track title, but also can feel the harshness brooding as it plays out and leaks its venomous liquid through its vicious assault, and this is without being played fast. ‘Acid on my Skin’ speaks volumes from its title and will have you believe that it is toxic and caustic and of course you would be right to believe as its abrasive mark is made with a very potent vocal and large slices of darkened rhythms. ‘All Our Failings’ is a very imposing track that holds a lot of insatiable bait. It begins fast and then slows down to reveal that it can’t make up its mind if it wants to move faster or slower so you just have to go along with the flow, however, the track contain...

Anatomy of Loss is the debut full-length from The Crawling, a trio of death/doomers hailing from Lisburn, Northern Ireland. The melancholy stylings of classic Paradise Lost are strong influences here, so you should have a good idea of what to expect. There isn’t anything groundbreaking about Anatomy of a Loss, but lyrics, tone, and instrumentation all come together to create a solid expression of mourning as expressed in the album’s title and the “dedicated to” section of the liner notes. Guitarist Andy Clarke does a good job of blending tremolo death riffs, single-note doom riffs, and dissonant chord progressions, making for songs that are varied enough to stay interesting without losing the depressing, bleak edge that is the album’s theme.  “All Our Failings” and a few other sections get a bit groovy, which throws off the downcast vibe a bit, and there are a few transitions that are slightly jarring, but highlights like “An Immaculate Deception” and a re-recorded version of...

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...

Before I go to sleep at night, reading is typically the last thing I do. The current book is Don't Try This At Home by Dave Navarro. There was a conversation in that book about Steve Vai . Mr. Vai is a very divisive figure in the musical world. That's not to be meant as an insult. It's just that there are a few camps here. Many folks, even some instrumental bands I've interviewed, have said how do you connect to Steve Vai? The prevailing opinion amongst them is that Vai is simply flexing his muscles for 90 minutes each night. Well this is something that a goodly number of metal bands do each night. There's the constant blast beats that run concurrently with the unchanging demonic vocals. Distort the bass from note one and what we have is a preening tosser on the beach. For the record, anyone who thinks that about Steve Vai simply hasn't heard, they may have listened, but haven't heard. Anyway, The Cawling hail from one of the four countries in the United...

ANATOMY OF LOSS is the debut album from the semi-sober Irish death metal band THE CRAWLING. A promising band with an even more promising album. After the release of their three track EP IN LIGHT OF DARK DAYS, I have been looking forward to hearing this record. In terms of style and sound, this album is very much more of the same. There is a vast selection of death metal riffing, each one being as catchy as the other thanks to having more emphasis on the rhythm rather then following the idiotic trend of how fast and extreme they could play. When the group aren’t thrashing out on their instruments, they are playing slow heavy chords that is best described as doom metal. These songs start off slow (a little too slow for my personal taste) and had they been a little longer, they would have been a little tedious. But THE CRAWLING seem to have enough common sense to realise that each song requires a good hook and just when things slow down, they burst into life with some mean riff. Both st...

This is a new experience to me but as soon as I randomly start listening to 'An Immaculate Deception & 'Acid On My Skin' I'm fuckin' excited 'cause this is hard hitting quality doom metal but at the same time it does not leave you waiting for world doom part 3. It's aggressive,punchy,catchy and all you want from a good album really,I forgot to mention brutal 'cause it is at times ,like a mix of death metal and doom metal, I guess it depends on how you see it. Anyways, 'Anatomy Of Loss' is suitable for most occations, I'm having a small party now and when I out out of a sudden decided to try this one the party suddenly moved to the next level and everybpdy seeems satisfied. What you get is 7 long lasting tracks from 5-9 mins and value for every penney, and by the way it's spinning for the second time now by popular demand. The Crawling is a band who knows what they do and leave nothing to coincidences, it's professionally excecut...

The Irish extreme metal scene is bustling at the moment, as anyone who’s witnessed a raft of excellent acts making the short hop across the water to perform at the UK’s most eminent outdoor extreme metal festival, Bloodstock Open Air in recent years, will gladly testify. Last August one of the acts from the Emerald Isle to really make their mark at Catton Park was The Crawling. Remarkably for relative newcomers, The Crawling also managed to secure an invite to perform at Inferno in Norway, so one way or another they’re own brand of blackened death/doom has reached a wide audience over the past 12 months. Now is the time for us to further familiarise ourselves with this Lisburn-based trio through the release of their eagerly anticipated debut album Anatomy of Loss. Having had a couple of singles already under their belt, any flaws have by now well and truly been ironed out and The Crawling are not pulling their punches with this release, the handling of which is being managed by Grind...

The agonies of life, the pain of loss, the morose mundane existence of 21st Century life - yes The Crawling haven't released a happy clappy début album full of soaring choruses and posed pretentiousness with 'Anatomy of Loss'. It is sourced from living in a bleak commuter town pretending to be a city; concrete corrosiveness and a stark pretentious populace blithely living in a bubble of hyper-normalisation, consumerism, avoiding reality lest it intrude on their narcissistic lives. Andy, Stuart and Gary have produced an album ridden with pain, as they say on 'Poison Orange' the sense of "drowning in horror" pervades each tortured note. If there is hope to be taken from this album, it is only the almost cathartic realisation that others share your loathing for what passes as civilisation. Musically doom, sludge and bleak metal have been absorbed into a sensibility where the despair on "Acid On My Skin" is the most 'cheerful' sounding track...

The Crawling are a band from Northern Ireland that has been featured before in this zine and plays a mixture of doom and death metal with some black metal touches and this is a review of their 2017 album "Anatomy Of Loss" which will be released in April by Grindscence Records. Melodic riffing and spoken word parts start off the album and you can also hear all of the musical instruments that are presented on the recording and after awhile death metal growls along with a few black metal screams make their presence known on the recording and the solos and leads also use a great amount of melody. Some of the tracks are very long and epic in length while the slow riffing is very heavily rooted in doom metal along with a great amount of early 90's influences and as the album progresses clean playing can also be heard in certa...

With a massive and overpowering sound, The Crawling comes out with Anatomy of Loss, their brand new upcoming seven track release. With the combination of death and doom metal as well as some dismal atmospheres, The Crawling creates a sound that is bitter, melancholic, angry, twisted and more and it all strikes at the heart of the listener. The sound is unmistakable and unavoidable once you press play, and as soon as you do you end up getting wrapped up in abyssal clouds of atmosphere and dark, dense and heavy death metal riddled doom. The Crawling begin Anatomy of Loss with An Immaculate Deception which hits you square in the chest with anvil heavy riffs and sledgehammer drumming and from then on the tone is set for the rest of the record. After the first few minutes of this release you understand just how heavy and monolithic it really is. Anatomy of Loss is a crushing release that engulfs you in bitter darkness for the entirety with not a single ray of light at the end of the aby...

PHOTO CREDIT: ©  Darren McVeigh /Uber Rock. ... A quick trip to the bogs and the bar, in that order, fills the changeover time before headliners The Crawling create a mood darker than the venue’s black-painted walls but joyous enough to welcome the sunshine of the next morning’s mid-winter dawn a few hours early. Mainland readers might be familiar with the band’s name from their absolutely crushing set on the New Blood stage at last summer’s Bloodstock (funny how the Irish bands, from both sides of the border, absolutely destroyed every other act on the bill that weekend). For those unfamiliar with them, however, this dark destructive force deliver doom-infused deathly riffs heavy enough to wake the slumbering giant on the hill which overlooks the city, coupled with huge, gristly, throbbing rhythms with loads of fat on them, coupled with gnarly, growling harmonies driven by behemothic blastbeats that at times defy the laws of physics in their psychotic speed combined with pra...

Lurking in the shadows of Northern Ireland’s music culture is a healthy and vibrant extreme metal scene, showcasing the best doom, death and black metal that the province has to offer. These bands plug away determinedly, recording and gigging and honing their dark crafts to a loyal and knowledgeable audience. One such band is Lisburn’s The Crawling who emerged in late 2014, created by three veterans of the extreme metal scene: vocalist and guitarist Andy Clarke, who fronted metallers Honey For Christ; bassist and vocalist Stuart Rainey from death metal legends Severance; and drummer Gary Beattie, who still plays with death metal whizz kids Zombified. Within a year they had enough material to record their debut EP In Light of Dark Days, which was released on Grindscene Records in October 2015. Then, to cap off a near perfect year for the band, they won 2016’s Metal 2 the Masses here in Northern Ireland (you can read about the final here ) and played the hallowed grounds of Bloodstock Fe...

Dense billowing smoke and the sound of Gregorian chant fill the air, marking the arrival of The Crawling , fresh from their decimation of Bloodstock just a few short weeks earlier, before the first power chord from [ Gary’s ] Andy's guitar proves more than enough to rip the heads off the under-dressed smiks queuing for the nightclub next door – never mind those of us just a few feet away in the confines of the same room! The trio’s massive trainwreck-inducing rhythms hit harder than thon so-called hurricane that was supposedly bothering Florida around the same time, and clearly demonstrates just how effectively they levelled the aforementioned New Blood stage with their absolutely titanic performance at Catton Park. They’re so brutally tight that the only crack of light they display between their constituent parts is induced by their strobes… it’s a thoughtfully and tautly created and presented set which delivers a genuine feel of malice stalking the venue while at the same ...

A smoky and atmospheric intro heralds the arrival of doom/death metal headliners The Crawling, who – once the smoke clears – are instantly engaging, particularly vocalist/guitarist Andy Clarke, who is all intense glares and mesmerising charisma, with a voice straight from the bowels of Hell. Their richly textured songs combine both slow and fast sections – doom and death – with the faster sections simply commanding the crowd to headbang, which they do, ecstatically. They play a mix of both current songs such as 'Catatonic' and, excitingly, new tracks from their upcoming, as yet untitled album, such as 'Violence, Vanity and Neglect', which has a thick groove and an almost stoner metal feel. There's a real symbiotic relationship between the crowd and the band, with Clarke in particular feeding of the waves of applause and relish washing over the stage. And when they close their set with the magnificently creepy 'The Right to Crawl', with its buzz...

Yet another quality Irish band The Crawling broke the mould from the largely Death/Thrash of the New Blood stage by bringing some Doom to the New Blood stage.  Starting off to a smallish crowd they were incredibly good, and as they played their audience grew and grew. The doom side of their sound was excellent, causing the ever growing crowd to nod along appreciatively to their tone.  The doom sound was punctuated with some furious death metal blasts with buzzsaw guitars and barked dry vocals. The way they switched between the two allowed their sound to ebb and flow their intensity almost hypnotically with the crowd.  Their stoic stage presence showed their confidence on stage and this was a commanding performance. Their set was another personal highlight of the New Blood stage over the weekend.  Get Your Rock Out RP

First of the Northern Irish acts was this year’s Metal 2 the Masses winners The Crawling(you can read about their victory here ), whose doomy death metal proved to fit the style of Bloodstock perfectly.  Their commanding half hour set on the Friday drew a large crowd into the New Blood stage tent almost immediately, and those lucky enough to witness them were mightily impressed by their darkly pulsating songs.  Vocalist/guitarist Andy Clarke is a true showman, with a snarling voice that drips with venom and a penetrating glare that pins the crowd into place. They play an engrossing mix of both slow and fast music which keeps the crowd hooked, and by the time they arrive at final track ‘The Right to Crawl’ it’s clear that they’ve smashed their set right out of Catton Park. Magnificent. Chordblossom Melanie Brehaut

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

Photo Credit: Adrian Hextall / MindHex Media Of course, it’s not all about the main stage and with Jay Hawkins out and about catching bands across the other three, there will be his words and pictures to follow in due course.  Not wanting to be outdone or miss something special, a brief reprise from Venom’s set allowed an opportunity to take in The Crawling. On the New Blood stage, The Crawling play a mix of Doom and Death metal and in Andy Clarke have a great front man and vocalist. His roars and guitar work were second to none and it was pleasing to see the quality of musicianship between the three members.  Stuart Rainey played in 90’s death metal legends Severance, Andy fronted Honey For Christ for 14 years, and Gary Beattie is still drumming for Zombified. As such tight and experienced sums up their set perfectly. Adrian Hextall Myglobalmind Online Magazine

Founded only in 2014, another short-publication put the Ulsterman THE CRAWLING after her single "Choking On Concrete" by: Three tracks are there become that now brings out the trio on an EP, entitled "In The Light Of Dark Days". While the cover - all in black and white and with a sad-faced female figure - would not fall out of the frame in Doom or dark metal sector, usually associates more with the death metal band logo. The (musical) is somewhere in between: With harsh growls, distorted bass and catchy midtempo riffing ( "The Right To Crawl") of Death Metal is indeed the most represented in the music of the trio, with simple held, but atmospheric Clean guitars and However, atmospheric samples as at the beginning of slow-doomy "Catatonic" have tHE CRAWLING also gloomy and sluggish elements in their sound, and to offer more than just blunt death metal. Although the songwriting may malfunction even a bit more sophisticated and diversified, but in t...

The Crawling formed late 2014 in Northern Ireland and “churn out a heavy, slow, death ensemble; forged against a backdrop of misery and contempt for the world that surrounds us.” The three members describe themselves as ‘ageing’ – no comment there – and this EP shows a “darker, more mature side to the band”. I’ll be honest, I thought this was a wee bit Spinal Tap at first glance, but will bear with it. The CD is a fiver and the digital download is only three quid – if you’re a fan of death or black metal in general then I recommend you stop reading this, hit the link and get it straight away, as this is a bargain. I loved it. This is comfortably beyond melancholic. It is a cracking cocktail of the desolate, cold and hateful. It’s also extremely intelligently put together, with suspenseful introductions, rhythmic and dynamic variance, extremely accomplished playing and a great use of texture. ‘The Right To Crawl’ opens with a slow, folky guitar riff that recapitulates throughout the tra...