ALBUM REVIEW: The Crawling – Wolves And The Hideous White

Here I review the new album from Northern Irish Death-Doom heavyweights THE CRAWLING. A band I caught at Bloodstock Festival a couple years back and really enjoyed!

1. Wolves And The Hideous White dives right in with slow tempo riffs that certainly crawl to you, with menacing dissonance and well paced drums to match, the vibe is perfectly set to one of horror and darkness. With the building drums the song is clearly growing to something that is both atmospheric but also malignant. The gruesome vocals join out of nowhere really taking things to gruesome new heights. Everything works really well together with a mixture of melody, rawness and crushingly heavy emotivity. There is a really pleasant and digestible simplicity to the piece the flows really fluidly. The drum fills around the centre of the song were absolutely killer and there were also some gorgeous glimpses of really well boosted bass. Overall this was a killer opening track that really set the vibe of the album beautifully whilst being decimating in sound.
2. Still No Sun follows up with sampled church bells, something that never gets old to me and always gives a nice gothic vibe to music. The melodic riffs that join are really pristinely written and the groove of the piece soon comes to fruition with demonically dismal and bleak assaults. The ensemble of morbidity is just so fantastic and packed with far more aggressive instrumentals and vocals alike than the previous track. The more chaotic attack of the song is brilliantly performed and a nice contrast to the first piece. Another thing to note is the skilfully written lyrics, certainly worth paying close attention to. Excellent work!
3. Drowned In Shallow Water starts with some really depressive and downright stunning guitars, the bleak yet gorgeously rich sounds are certainly filled with melancholy. The drums and bass lay back a lot on this for the simplicity to create this sort of monotonous and hypnotic feel to the song. The groovy riffs are slow tempo and follow up beautifully with such impact and emotion behind each note, whilst being topped off with powerfully heartfelt lyrics growled with such passion. The purely sombre vibe of this song was totally chilling and incredibly performed, I absolutely adored this track, it really does hit you in the feels for sure. Astounding!
4. A Time For Broken Things whilst increasing speeds still includes tons of melancholy and some really richly intense riffs. The drudging feel of the instruments and slowly growled vocals really do draw at your joy taking you into the realm of emotivity and bleak soundscapes the band create with such precision while definitely keeping things as simple as they can be. This song is a short yet excellent example of that. The piece is also actually really catchy, allowing the despair to stay with you long after listening. Fantastic work!
5. Rancid Harmony drags at you from the beginning with crushing, drawn out guitars, slow drum beats and dismally gruesome growls. The catatonic and vitriolic mixture of faster Death Metal sections and grotesquely dark Doom Metal make something equally intense and hate-filled as it is self-loathing and depressive. Honestly this song has a much more progressive nature than the others and I loved it. While still keeping in check with the bands unique sound, they definitely pushed the boat out with more experiment ideas on this song (especially in the melodies) that for me I found worked really well and made for an entertaining and brilliantly juxtaposing piece of art. The ending of this song absolutely kicks your teeth in too. Absolutely fantastic stuff, a totally headbanger friendly track!
6. Promise And Parasites gives closure to the album, coming in with warm bass tones and some really tasteful drum work. Once more the vibe of the song is one of depravity and despair, which the band are great at creating. The menacing attack the follows up is perfectly balanced yet contradictory to the slower more melodic pace of other parts. This song is a great reflection of the bands ability to mix complete sonic opposites in a really fluid and naturally well composed manner. Once more a bleak, fantastic exploitation of our darker sides, making for a wonderful closing track.

The monstrously heavy new album from The Crawling may not be something on all of your radars but I certainly suggest Extreme Metal and Doom Metal fans alike check this one out! A relatively simplistic but superbly atmospheric venture into some really dark new territory with some fantastic new tracks. -7.5/10