Wretched Wisdom By Krallice (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Black Metal)

Most of the music I post here is in the indierock/electronic vein, but let me tell you I have a major soft spot for trash and speedmetal circa 1985-1992. I admit it. After the Metallica black album, that soft spot hardened. Time passed. Then metal crossed over into indie. I really liked that first album by The Sword. I wanted to get into Mastodon when I first heard of them, but it never really took. I dig them when they come up on random on iTunes, but I never really seek them out.

Downloadables:
"Barael's Blade" (box.net mp3) by The Sword
"March Of The Fire Ants" (box.net mp3) by Mastodon

Then I started checking out instrumental postmetal (via thepunkguy, thanks Krist), e.g. Russian Circles and Pelican, kickass. I think I liked the instrumental part of the equation as I am not a big fan of the cookie monster vocals.

Downloadables:
"Station" (box.net mp3) by Russian Circles
"City of Echoes" (box.net mp3) by Pelican

When I was checking into that genre, one name kept popping up... Krallice.

They look like this:


This is not instrumental postmetal. This is the non-satanist American variant of Black Metal played by guys who have roots in the prog/jazz/post/tech-metal of Orthrelm and Behold...The Arctopus. This is less noodly and proggy. Nevertheless, this is a commitment. The shortest song is on the Krallice self-titled album is 6:08. The mp3 below clocks in at 10:17. Because the screamy vocals are very low in the mix, for me this is a new genre almostinstrumentalblackmetal. It is AWE-some (in the true meaning of the word). I wish someone told me about this when it came out in July last year.

Downloadable: "Wretched Wisdom" (box.net mp3) by Krallice

Am I going to be sucked in to an investigation of Black Metal? I had always rejected the genre as "too extreme," but maybe I just wasn't ready for it. We'll see.

Profound Lore is here.
Amazon MP3 page is here.
eMusic page is here.

Consider CLICKing
- Deerhunter side-proj, Lotus Plaza has a new new new mp3 available on Stereogum... here.

- Raven Sings The Blues brings you "two great female fronted doses of fuzzed pop." Check out the Blank Its and Golden Triangle... here. (Note: Methinks we'll see more of these bands around this here web presence).

The Krallice album

Off My Radar 2008, Part 2

And now the next installment of Off My Radar, where I post killer tracks I had not heard until reading other people's best of 2008 lists.



Downloadables:
"Harper Lewis" (box.net mp3) by Russian Circles

"Un Día" (box.net mp3) by Juana Molina

"Daily I Will Calculate The Distance" (box.net mp3) by ((Sounder))

"Hole In My Head" (box.net mp3) by Box Elders

Check out Part 1 of Off My Radar... here.

Consider CLICKing
- Holy Crap... I just noticed the fourth release from Staggering Statistics, I'm Thinking About Changing is available on their website for freees... here. Listen: "Learned Quarry" (mp3)

- Best Of 2008: Pretty Much Amazing's pretty amazing 212 best songs... here.

- Best Of 2008: Pop Tart Suck Toasted is getting closer to #1... here (19-22).

- Best Of 2008: The Consequence Of Sound Year End Report: The Top 100 Albums... here.

- Best Of 2008: Tullycraft's Tullyblog is doing a piecemeal Top Ten Songs listing. Check out #10... here.

- Best Of 2008: Two more staff member's lists are up at The Tape (is not sticky)... here and here.

- Best Of 2008: Pitchfork posts The 50 Best Albums... here.

- Best of B00M!!: Did you ever wonder what would happen if you put a butane lighter in a blender? Find out (in slo-mo)... here.