Day: February 15, 2019

This is the second full length for the Northern Irish band The Crawling, valid promulgators of the word of the most canonical death doom. Wolves And The Hideous White, however, is not at all an exhibition of the genre in its most tetragonous or putrescent version, but correctly draws lymph from the fundamental British school, putting aside gothic temptations in favour of a more oppressive impact, but not without melodic cues. The fulcrum of the work is in some ways the most anomalous track, Drowned In Shallow Water, which comes to break the more robust pace of the initial title track and the remarkable Still No Sun, a track in the early Paradise Lost quota; here post metal pulses emerge that do not distort at all a sound always well identifiable, even when the guitar work exhibits unusual dissonances. After the short and not particularly incisive episode A Time For Broken Things, with Rancid Harmony the Lisburn trio return to rage with great effectiveness, alternating deadly riffs with minimal but always significant melodic openings; Promises And Parasites closes without negative surprises this excellent work that, as almost always happens with what comes from the lands across the Channel, enjoys a good production to enhance the raw work of guitarist and singer Andy Clarke and his partners Stuart Rainey (bass) and Gary Beattie (drums). Wolves And The Hideous White is a good confirmation for a band that is relatively new but already able to impose a convincing and, within the limits allowed by the genre, quite personal sound.

2018 – GrindScene Records