The Rock Blogger

Krallice. Dimensional Bleedthrough . 2009. 4 stars.

When I saw Krallice open for Wolves in the Throne Room earlier this year, my friend (a stranger to black metal) said that they created "emotional texture". This, to me, was entirely accurate and sums up Krallice’s latest epic, an exhaustive, unrepentant and complex textural experiment.

Its easy to see how divisive such an album can be, especially considering the involvement of avant-garde guitarist Mick Barr (of Ocrilim, Orthrelm fame). As always, his shredding is dense, intricate and highly technical, concerned more with enveloping the listener than maintaining any pleasant melodies. Those with such an acquired taste will be in rapture - the wall of sound created is simply immense.

While other American black metal bands emulate the climatic, forest-inspired atmosphere found across Europe, Krallice’s efforts are more influenced by the chaotic mathematics of New York City, with frantic, kinetic patterns and grimy detail. The vocals are harsh and menacing but used sparingly as emotional punctuations in the concrete jungle.

Though this is a technical album, it is not entirely "soulless", as fluid percussive work and the complicated layering of guitar parts sets the stage for immersion. Like a rabid animal set loose on the city street, Krallice doesn’t let up or slow down, it just keeps tearing up its surroundings tooth and nail, riff after brutal riff.

Certainly, some of these runs (like "The Mountain" and "Aridity" for instance) go on for far too long, leading inspired and fiery moments into a sea of tedium. Despite it not being as focused as last year’s self-titled debut, Dimensional Bleedthrough is still an impressive attempt at pushing black metal to its formal limits, even though its thematics get lost in the choas. Even though its flaws are obvious, I still can’t help but get drawn into the "emotional texture" of this album, even if some of its scenes are oppressively bleak.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 at 3:20 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.