This Cracking Shelter

I'm going to try and keep this as quick and painless as possible: I have no background on this band to give, I came across them by accident whilst clicking the "random band" button on the Metal Archives, and thought to myself: "Hell, they haven't been reviewed yet, I'll look them up. How bad could they be?" turns out they're excellent, if you're looking for a sleep aid. If you feel inclined to give this band a listen, do as I did and listen to this EP on The Invict's youtube channel, but if you choose to buy it, well, buyer beware.

Within the first few notes of the opener "Determination", you can already strongly hear the Meshuggah influence coursing through it's veins, but don't expect any Meshuggah style craziness. Slow, muddy "riffs" are pretty much all you're going to get as this EP plods along, bringing you closer to slumber the longer it goes. If I could make a suggestion to the band, renaming "Determination" to perhaps "Hibernation" might give the average listener a better idea what they're in for. Halfway through this song, it kicks into a riff that's very similar to Meshuggah's "Bleed", complete with the galloping riff and bass pedals, slow changing key, and even the soft, almost ambient guitar-work in the background that is such a signature of Meshuggah. The opener is definitely the most blatant case of Meshuggah worship on the EP, but it's not the only case, as the title track quickly follows suit with a riff that could be a reject from 2002's Nothing.

Really there's not much else to say about the guitar work on this album, it's pretty much all either mediocre thrash riffs, or chugging "djent-as-hell" riffs, with the one exception being "Masquerade", which shows some hints of having a decent riff, but this song (and most of the EP) is dragged down by the lack of interesting structure, and by that I mean no structure. "Masquerade" is basically just one riff for 6 minutes, and it's not a good enough riff to justify this lack of variation. Oh wait it's not one riff for 6 minutes, it's one riff for 5 minutes, with the last minute being dedicated to a three note djent "riff" that seems out of place in this song. It's almost like they finished writing the song and realized it wasn't djenty enough, and fixed that "problem" by playing three notes in stop-start fashion.

The production on this album doesn't help matters either, it's muddy and slightly confusing, and doesn't do anything but drag the whole product down as a result. The guitars are the loudest part of the mix, with the bass not really being a factor except on parts of "Masquerade", and the drums being drowned out so much it's like they were recorded in a separate building. Although they sound as muddy as everything else, the vocals actually aren't bad, they sound a lot like the vocals on Fleshgod Apocalypse's "Oracles", and are really the only element that doesn't strive to be the next Meshuggah.

So, if you have insomnia, you can pick this EP up, and fall asleep to the sound of 25 minutes of slow, boring, badly produced Meshuggah worship. If you like interesting, unique metal that tries to bring something new to the table, stay far away from This Crackling Shelter, because all of the things this band is trying to do have been done before, and been done much better at that.