All of This for Nothing

Anyone who knows what I like about death doom metal will understand why 'March of the Worm' arrested my attention on first listen. That opening song from The Crawling’s third album combines unbelievably stern vocals with just the right kind of crushing slow weight that gets my ears pricking up and my shoulders rolling back, sort of like the heavier moments of recent Paradise Lost, or a personal favourite of mine, Czech death doomers From Beyond. This is my first sampling of the Irish trio, who have already made it through almost a decade together, and their sound soaks up all the thick heaviness from the fat end of death doom, as well as some of the gothic tendencies at the other extreme. The variety across All of This for Nothing reminds me favourably of My Silent Wake, since the character of that first knee-jerk moment does not entirely predominate, sharing territory with rhythmic interplay of more death metal origin, as well as atmospheric clean work on the guitars. Helpfully in my case, I’m enjoying the fact that The Crawling haven’t just made another early ‘90s copy based on the Peaceville Three, which happens all too often in this style nowadays.

To return to my earliest impressions, the crunching growls from Stuart Rainey or Andy Clarke (I’m not sure whether they come from the bassist or guitarist, since both are credited with vocals) provide a solid anchor for flexibly-paced material, resonating with an incredible granite frequency that shows how well-produced this album is. When they combine with a similar but somewhat fatter tone from the guitar, my brain does that dopamine doom thing, whereby the music feels massively heavy and punishing yet simultaneously very relaxing. Many of the songs have that same consonant feel, though none in quite the same booming manner as 'March of the Worm', elsewhere using harmonic matches to uphold that feeling of rightness, even where heaviness can be fleeting, such as during 'Bound to the Negative'. That longest song passes 8 minutes and seems to include everything that The Crawling throw into All of This for Nothing, from the lingering post-rock of the sparse opening and the rising patterns of the last climax to the crushing doom chords in the verses and pulverizing death metal bridge. That’s not to mention a very specific sense of timing that unites the vocals with the work of the rhythm players, making even some of the drearier sections fairly catchy.

All of This for Nothing almost takes pleasure in destroying my expectations from the opener, because every time I listen to this I’m struck by how far they manage to drift from strict death doom ideas. Aside from the clean work that becomes more evident as the album continues, 'Leaving the Skin' indicates that Gojira can be counted among the influences, as that melding tapping riff produces the character of the French juggernauts so easily that I wonder whether the vocals would fit From Mars to Sirius as well as The Dreadful Hours or Medusa, which were my original models for this sound. Probably the most unique element of The Crawling’s approach is that these disparate sounds tend to mix convincingly within each song, leaving the experience somewhat up and down yet overall actually quite balanced. No especially prolonged intervals of soft, fast, or chaotic material pull the loping, moody feel of the album off course, and that seems quite an achievement when reckoning with 7 songs that all do slightly different things.

In some ways, I do feel a little disappointed with the direction this full-length turns in after the start had all my feelers pricked up. I’m forever looking for albums with a constant slow-burning momentum that will push me downwards into my chair and smother me with fat doom grooves that lean into death metal in terms of heaviness and character. However, I can say that the way The Crawling approach the style also offers many attractions, such as a necessary amount of reflective sections for contrast and a decent mixture of paces. Considering the band only has 3 members, the broadness and nuance of their sound impresses too, in particular the richness of activity from the bass, never allowing me to feel the lack of guitar in the mix. On this kind of form, The Crawling deserve to be sharing stages with all the illustrious names I’ve mentioned in this review.


Originally written for The Metal Observer - http://www.metal-observer.com/3.o/review/the-crawling-all-of-this-for-nothing/