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Krallice > Krallice > Reviews > damaramou
Krallice - Krallice

Fantastic - 90%

damaramou, January 20th, 2009

Atmosphere and awesome riffs, atmosphere and awesome riffs, atmosphere and awesome riffs...sound good? That's this album in a nutshell. Sound like black metal? It is. But not as we know it (crap, what a cheesy line). This album is for the open-minded metal head only, most stalwart black metal fans would denounce this as not being real black metal or whatever, because of course all black metal must sound like it did in the 90's and must contain nothing but true black metal riffs. Any hint of genre progression seems to scare the shit outta these people, so if this describes you then this might not be for you, however if you have an open mind and ear then you will enjoy this muchly.

The riffs on this album are strange, very strange in fact. There tremolo picked mostly, so they have a black metal feel to them, but the actual content, the notes, are very unique. The beauty lies in the layering of the guitars and the bass, you can hear each of them playing their own distinct, yet similar piece. The whole lot comes together to form this wonderful textured sound, much like you'd expect from a post-rock outfit. This album does feature some virtuoso band members, so of course you are treated to some superb solo's here and there, all of which are extremely well placed, such as at the end of Cnestorial. These solo's are far removed from the kind of instrumental wanking you'd expect to hear in Barr or Marstons other projects, in fact there's very little instrument wanking in this really which may please of discourage you depending on your stance on bands like Behold...the arctopus and their ilk.

I think this leans much more toward the post-rock side of things than any other post-black band I've heard, but that's not too say that this music is uplifting like post-rock tends to be, but the epic feel of post rock is certainly present. For the most part this album has a very tangible depressive atmosphere, and the vocals...when they are present...are quite angry and add a kind of manic feel to the music. However don't expect a 1349 or DSO onslaught of aggression here, this music is more akin to Alatyr or Alcest in that it's quite laid back, but is still dripping with atmosphere.

On to the drumming! This is the instrument that has the most in common with traditional black metal instrumentation. The bulk of the drumming is the classic mid-paced alternating style blastbeat, which is used a heck of a lot in black metal. Mixed in with this are a variety of familiar double bass beats and blastbeats, the drummer does add in a lot of fills though in a bid to keep things more interesting. I really really enjoyed the drumming, it gave me a familiar thing to hook into with this album, and really does provide a superb backing for the other instruments, never once pushing to the forefront...the drummer just keeps each song flowing perfectly and keeps it simple most of the time.

I am very impressed with this album, on a whole it is a great listen, and it will keep you coming back for more because the riffs are very memorable and will get stuck in your head, there are lots of hooks and nice melodies and each listen can reveal another layer that you didn't notice before. Another thing that really impresses me is the composition of the album and the restraint of each band member. Each song is very well written, nothing seems out of place, in fact I'd say it comes across as quite calculated even...like the music has been written out and tweaked to perfection as opposed to it being jammed out till it sounded right as most bands tend to. Every member of the band has a lot of technical ability and comes from a background where they'd be expected to play in a very technical style, with lots showing off and whatnot. However on this album they have all toned their playing right down, and are all playing for the music and nothing else, good show ole'bean!