Krallice - Ygg huur

By Justin C. It feels weird to categorize Krallice as black metal at this point, given their latest album, Ygg hurr. Granted, they were never dyed-in-the-wool second-wave worshipers, so the shift in sound on their latest album isn't quite as abrupt as it might seem at first. To be honest, my first thought was, "Krallice made a Gorguts album!"

By Justin C.


It feels weird to categorize Krallice as black metal at this point, given their latest album, Ygg hurr. Granted, they were never dyed-in-the-wool second-wave worshipers, so the shift in sound on their latest album isn't quite as abrupt as it might seem at first. To be honest, my first thought was, "Krallice made a Gorguts album!" But listening to it back to back with Colored Sands, I realized that wasn't quite the full story. There's as much of Dysrhythmia's torturous prog goodness here as their is Gorguts, but given that all of these acts share members, it's not surprising that a lot of influence would bleed through them all.

Krallice at Incubate Festival 2014. Photo by Jostijn Ligtvoet

There's still a hefty dose of the Krallice's patented, extra-dissonant tremolo riffing, but those riffs butt heads with plenty of much stranger fare. Check out the first minute or so of "Over Spirit." The intro sounds like some kind of demented wind-up toy losing steam, but then it runs headlong into a truly righteous tremolo riff. The switch from chugging aggression to an airy, suspended guitar line in "Bitter Meditation"? Utterly beautiful.

The album opener, "Idols," has what might be one of my favorite riffs so far this year. It's a snaky single-note line, complete with counterpoint, that at times sound almost like a canon. (And I mean the musical type of canon here, not the artillery type of cannon.) You know how shredders in the 80s were always going on about their classical influences, which meant that they'd occasionally throw in a Bach line or a trill in a solo? Yeah, this riff puts all of that wankery to shame.

Krallice at Incubate Festival 2014. Photo by Jostijn Ligtvoet

What else is there to like here? Plenty. The bass is up in the mix and hard driving. The percussion is fascinating in its own right, but as with the best rhythm sections, it blends in with the rest of the music rather than trying to stomp all over it.

All that said, I did find this a hard album to warm up to. It took a while for my initial disappointment over this being "not a Krallice album" to fade. But once I learned to stop trying to dissect how much Krallice vs. Gorguts vs. whatever it is, I liked it a little bit more each time I listened to it.

Unhold - Towering

By Calen Henry. The only reason I’m even aware of Unhold’s existence is because they opened for A Storm of Light at a show I attended on a whim, in Geneva, in 2008. I’ve been a fan ever since, despite a lack of any new material from them since then. It turns out they broke up in 2012, then reformed, added a piano player / third vocalist, and dropped a new record in January.

By Calen Henry.

Illustration by Philipp Thöni/BlackYard

The only reason I’m even aware of Unhold’s existence is because they opened for A Storm of Light at a show I attended on a whim, in Geneva, in 2008. I’ve been a fan ever since, despite a lack of any new material from them since then. It turns out they broke up in 2012, then reformed, added a piano player / third vocalist, and dropped a new record in January.

Unhold, like many contemporary doom/sludge bands use Neurosis as a jumping off point and pepper their music with meandering post-rock interludes. But, they do it better than almost anyone else and the addition of keyboards has brought the group’s sound to another level. Towering is utterly phenomenal. They seamlessly blend crushing doom, ambient passages, stoner rock, post rock and some spacey psychedelic passages into a kind of cinematic-post-stoner-doom.

Complementing the genre acrobatics are three different vocalists ranging from Scott Kelly style well-bellowing, to spoken-word passages, to soaring Coheed and Cambria style leads, to beautiful female vocals provided by new member Miriam who also plays keyboards and really rounds out the group’s sound.

With such diverse influences and sounds Towering could be a mess but it’s far from it. The disparate sounds are brought together with stunning cohesion to make a true album experience. No one song captures the band’s sound; in fact I was initially offput by the unmelodic first half of album opener "Containing the Tyrant", but after having listened through the whole album and coming back to the start I “got it” and was completely hooked.

Towering is a journey through everything Unhold has on offer and one of the best albums of the year.

(It’s also worth noting that the Pangolin shirt they’re selling is probably the best metal shirt available on Bandcamp)

Black Wing - .​.​.​Is Doomed

By Justin C. Welcome to another installment of my random series of Metal-Adjacent Reviews(tm). This time, I'm going to talk about Black Wing, an electronic solo project by Dan Barrett, the fellow behind the somewhat-more-metal Have a Nice Life. Both of these projects are out on The Flenser, hence the aforementioned metal adjacency.

By Justin C.


Welcome to another installment of my random series of Metal-Adjacent Reviews(tm). This time, I'm going to talk about Black Wing, an electronic solo project by Dan Barrett, the fellow behind the somewhat-more-metal Have a Nice Life. Both of these projects are out on The Flenser, hence the aforementioned metal adjacency.

I have pretty eclectic music tastes, but truth be told, I'd probably be tempted to skip over something categorized as a "depressive chillwave" album. But I got sucked in by the striking album artwork for Black Wing's "...Is Doomed", and the fact that The Flenser is handling this. No matter what they put out, it's bound to be interesting, and I'd have to categorize this album as well beyond "interesting". The style may be electronic, but its messy, beating heart is big enough to blot out the sun. There's a mathematical precision to the music, but there's also Dan Barrett's voice, be it solo, processed, or presented as a choir, adding an inescapable hook and emotional grounding.

I have to be honest at this point: The previously released track "My Body Betrayed Me" was a huge draw for me when getting into this album. Barrett has mentioned that he was suffering from some health problems while recording this. As part of the press material, he explained, "I was dripping a lot of blood all over the place. It was all very undramatic and fleshy and strange." As I'm writing this, I'm also going through a strange, often-maddening health crisis of sorts, and the heart-on-its-sleeve lyrics of this song hit me like an industrial-strength narcotic. Lines like, "I know I'm dead / but do I care? / I was barely there / and now, I'm less" take on extra weight when your body is throwing out all manner of strange test results and treatment-resistant pain. I think I would have loved this song anyway--it's direct, elegant, and powerful--but I definitely had a hole in my heart perfectly shaped to receive this song. (I wouldn't be surprised if I also had a hole burned in my hard drive from listening to this on repeat. And possibly a literal hole in my cardiac organ. I don't think the doctors have ruled that out yet).

That said, there's plenty to get into here even if you're strictly a metal person and/or not currently being betrayed by your body. The title track, as promised by the album title, is in fact dark and doomy, even if it's not in a Sabbath-y or Saint Vitus-y kind of way. The darkness is punctuated by a certain amount of melodic lightness, and that goes for most of the music on this album. It's melancholy, but there are moments of meditation, and perhaps even a sense of redemption. Or maybe it comes down to what I heard the great philosopher Chris Cornell say in an interview, explaining the appeal of dark music. I'm paraphrasing from memory, but he basically said, "You hear depressing music, realize you're not the only person who ever felt that way, and guess what? You feel a little better."

So do you need some music to put on in the car on a coming sunny, fall day, when you're just not sure how you feel about life and what it's offering you at the moment? Something that elevates you even if it's describing a messier, sadder reality? Dan Barrett's got you covered. Highly, highly recommended.