Underground never ceases to amaze and give you something special and unique to listen and to satisfy your black heart with. CRAWL is a one man entity with one Michael A. Engle simultaneously playing drums, bass, vocals, synth and samples all at once. If CRAWL performs live that is surely unique and special sight and soundscape to behold and hear. This one contains only four songs with shortest being a little under seven minutes and longest being a little under eleven minutes. But, do not despair. Hark, CRAWL has so much to offer. This is darkness pure, so thick and when listening to this one, you feel like standing in front of a black wall with no possibility to cross it only to wither and die, but also it provides darkness so touchable that you can almost feel the wall of fear and despair with the tips of your fingers. CRAWL plays something in between blackened dungeon doom with tortured vocals screams, some whispers and speak like in horror movies, many samples, distorted bass, slow and funeral drum procession melancholy emphasized with piano and synth parts and some almost ritualistic slowing down, like you can virtually feel your heart beat slowing down and some song parts for me symbolize withering and dying, hopelessness and darkness, with no end in sight only despair and anguish, also with aggression as a result of realizing above mentioned. You must listen to this one as a whole process, it is excellent.
I have been listening to lots of doom lately, due to winter and weather and I just feel like it. Destronomer are hailing from far away Sydney, Australia, across the globe and this is their debut full length opus. This one contains eight songs. The music of Destronomer can be described as a melodic and epic doom metal with some up tempo more straightforward stoner metal influenced parts interweaving with some more psychodelic atmospheric songwriting as in excellent ‘Bin Diver’ where perfect vocal melody lines and doomy parts interplay with I would say also post metal parts and strong bass lines, but I must especially highlight vocals on this opus. Nathan Williams has such superb voice, gentle where needed, melodic and full voice which expresses all the emotions behind the music. This is a strong debut album for all of you who like your doom metal epic and melodic. My personal favorites: ‘Bin Diver’, ‘Core Fallen’, ‘Eschaton’.
Our Croatian underground scene just thrives and pulsates with great bands and releases and I remember the first time I saw Drone Hunter from neighbouring Varaždin town. It was an open air gig organized by members of MC Miners from Varaždin behind one shopping mall with Đubrivo from Split and some other bands and I immediately fell in love with Drone Hunter´s music. Later on my band played a house gig in Varaždin in a garage of one guy´s home and it was fantastic. I interviewed the guys for this zine and reviewed earlier releases. Now, it is time for a new e.p. This one contains 5 songs. Although Drone Hunter are an instrumental band and I am not an avid fan of bands without vocals, this one is so good that vocals are not needed, the instruments do the talking. Songs are so well written that they tell a story. The music of Drone Hunter is hard to categorize, but I will try. It is a mixture of doom, stoner, sludge, hard rock and atmospheric post rock. But, what brought more joy to this heart are some faster, almost thrash metal parts of the songs Cabin Fever and The Dark Den Brought Me Here. Production on this e.p. is so strong and great, courtesy of Tompa at e-minor studio in Varaždin, this dude does great job with many bands from this scene here up north. Anyway, if you like atmosphere, harsh riffs, aggression, emotions, check out Drone Hunter and support the scene.
KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 