#40 Krallice - Krallice

Well for one thing, I appreciate it when a band decides to do the whole s/t thing because that is one less thing I need to remember when talking about them, and I have a lot on my mind between eating and what's on TV and if I left the windows in the bedroom open because there is a storm brewing. This is complicated work on display here, and the members of the band have significant avant-crazo pedigrees from their previous/other bands, but what I think people tend to kind of gloss over is that there's some interesting melodic work going on under the screams and madness. Yes, the techie side is well represented, and there is much flailing of pick-hands and gnashing of teeth, but the bones lie mostly in composition, not look at me attention whoring. Much has been made of the question of whether this is really uppercase serious face Black Metal, but I think the answer is two-fold, only one half of which is "Shut the fuck up." The really great old school Black Metal out there lives and dies on composition and structure, albeit sometimes structure that is hard to glean on the first shot. SO the people that decry this band because they are too technical are like the jerks that get mad when East Bay Ray plays a non power chord and makes the Dead Kennedys all arty and not punk. Or from the school that feels like any Black Metal recording needs to be made by one lonely dude in a closet with a Fisher Price "My First 4-Track" that offs himself right after pressing the pause button and then his buddy makes 3 copies, buries two, and sends the third one to Terrorizer with dead dudes pinky toe in a baggie.

Where was I again? Oh yeah, Krallice. It's good despite the use of a saxophone in the rock idiom (ok Ihsahn gets a pass on this one too). Warning for the short attention span types bouncing up and down in their desk chairs: it's long! There is repetition! Too bad for you!

Krallice - Energy Chasms