_________________________________________________________________________ | . . | . | . | . | . | | . | . | , | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | > | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ` | ' | | | ' | | ` | ' | ' | ___|___|___|___|_______|_______|___|___|_______|___|_______|_______|_______|___ \______________________________________|______________________________________/ / \ | Artist..: Warcrab | >-----------------------------------------------------------------------------< | Album...: The Howling Silence | >-----------------------------------------------------------------------------< | Genre...: Death Metal | Label...: Transcending Obscurity | | Year....: 2023 | Cat.No..: | >-----------------------------------------------------------------------------< | R.date..: 2023-11-02 | S.date..: 2023-11-03 | >-----------------------------------------------------------------------------< | Source..: WEB (24bit) | Encoder.: libFLAC | | Bitrate.: 1694kbps avg. | F.Rate..: 44.1kHz | >-----------------------------------------------------------------------------< | http://open.qobuz.com/album/pt8q0tflr61pb | >-----------------------------------------------------------------------------< | Disc 1 / 1 | | -------- | | | | 01. Orbital Graveyard 4:06 | | 02. Titan of War 5:53 | | 03. Black Serpent Coils 5:29 | | 04. Sword of Mars 4:31 | | 05. As the Mourners Turn Away 8:54 | | 06. Sourlands Under a Rancid Sun 5:50 | | 07. Howling Silence 10:41 | | | | | | --------------------- | | (574.57MB) 00:45:24 | >-----------------------------------------------------------------------------< | Surprise! I know many of you have been patiently waiting for Holdeneye‘s | | review of the fourth full-length from UK death sludge slingers Warcrab, | | given how he so shamelessly ran his tongue all over their exoskeleton’s | | undercarriage when he reviewed their last outing, Damned In Endless Night. | | Well this time you get me. Don’t worry, Holdy‘s fine. He’s certainly not | | bound and ball-gagged in my garden shed dressed like Adventure Time’s Finn | | the Human, slipping in and out of consciousness in a chloroform haze. He | | was simply busy this week and remembered how much I also enjoyed Warcrab’s | | last album, so he turned over reviewing duties to yours truly. After | | spending a couple weeks with The Howling Silence, I’m happy to report the | | band’s unholy crustaceous hybrid of head-stomping death metal and | | gut-grinding sludge is nastier than ever. Turn it up nice and loud and it | | will easily drown out the muffled cries coming from your garden shed.1 | | | | Structurally, The Howling Silence is like a seesaw. On one side sits the | | likes of Carcass and Bolt Thrower. On the other, Crowbar and Grief. The | | first four songs/20 minutes of the record tip toward the former while the | | final three songs/25 minutes land hard on the latter. There are occasional | | stoner influences popping up, as on the buoyant bass line and exemplary | | stoner riff that makes up the first half of “Black Serpent Coils” before | | it gives way to driving, jittery death metal. “Sword of Mars,” one of many | | standouts, almost tips into Amon Amarth territory with its fist-pumping, | | battle-ready gallop, but Warcrab are able to balance their shifting styles | | so that no one sound dominates the seesaw. | | | | Some albums succeed because of a unique sound, or because of an | | all-encompassing atmosphere. The Howling Silence succeeds because nearly | | every song will liven up the playlist of your choice. “Orbital Graveyard” | | is an ideal album opener, tearing through four minutes of vicious death | | metal with the slightest hardcore undercurrent and a quirky repeating | | guitar lick. I’ve already mentioned the brutal “Sword of Mars,” like a | | boxer pummeling you with body shots while guitarist Geoff Holmes shreds | | solos over your anguished cries, and “Black Serpent Coils,” with that | | incredible pivot from righteous stoner sludge to high energy death | | riffing. But in the midst of all these bangers, my favorite song on The | | Howling Silence is “Sourlands Under a Rancid Sky.” Where doomy cuts like | | the title track and “As the Mourners Turn Away” invoke Crowbar with their | | heart-on-sleeve sludge doom, “Sourlands” takes a page straight from | | Grief’s ugly, pissed-off sludge doom playbook. The song grows gnarlier and | | heavier as it goes and is one of the best songs of the style I’ve heard in | | the last five or so years. | | | | Warcrab have made tremendous strides refining their sound with each | | release going back to their 2012 debut, but even then, there weren’t many | | bands doing what they do. On their first couple of records, there was an | | indistinct slurry of sludgy death doom that grew sharper and more death-y | | until the excellent Damned In Endless Night finally tipped more in the | | death doom direction. With The Howling Silence, Warcrab both re-instates | | their sludge doom bonafides and leans into proper OSDM in ways they | | haven’t before. In recent years, a small number of like-minded outfits | | have toyed with the same winning death metal/sludge doom combination. I’ve | | personally reviewed one or two. You could say a bigger name playing in the | | same arena is Inter Arma, but they’ve always been more post-metal with | | sludge and death inclinations. Simply put, nobody plays this burgeoning | | style better than Warcrab. | | | | It’s no small feat to become the touchstone of a sub-genre, but Warcrab | | have done so through experimentation and refinement over their decade-long | | career. You’d think death sludge would be a more popular hybrid style, but | | lack of competition detracts nothing from the band’s accomplishments. The | | Howling Silence is their best record to date, boasting highly refined | | songwriting and a fully realized sound. I know at least one AOTY list it | | will be appearing on... | \_____________________________________________________________________________/ ixxu!imp