Hailing from Sweden, Crowpath are not playing anything remotely melodic nor anything along the lines of Nasumor Gadget. They are instead treading the path that Gorguts took during their "Obscura" period, which isa whole different sound that I have yet to hear effectively defined. Basically, going from the ground up, this entire cd is built on absolutely frantic drumming. Impossibly complexpatterns over rolling double bass with exploding crash and china cymbals all over the place with rattling fillson the ride. The guitars fill the space with stinging dissonance that breathe with malice. Between the drumming,which is a cross between Hella and Mastodon both at their most technical, and the guitars, which are unorthodox even to those well broken into extreme metal, there is a frightening chaos. The vocals (which quite pleasantly sound of old Burnt By The Sun) take the music a step further into unknown realms of madness and brutality. The moments of flooding sludge on the album are unpredictable and anxiety-inducing.Unfortunately, music that is this unrelenting in drumming and this incessantly ugly in chord structure is veryhard to discern until a great deal of listening has been done (which many people said about Obscura).
It can't be ignored that there are moments of massive monolithic doom, which seperates the album into massive explosions between the belts of chain gun ammunition.It is still a solid cd as far as production, individual song writing, vocals, musicianship and creativity. It just demands a bit of patience on the part of the listener, which isn't alot to ask considering the amount of work put into this album.
Rating: 8/10
Originally Posted by Alex on Friday, December 9 2005 12:14 AM
