Honesty time folks, I often find the best policy is to keep everything above board so to speak, saves a lot of hassle. Yes, I have reviewed this little doozy of an album before, for another site. It would be extremely easy for me just to shuffle a few words around on that one and just plagiarise myself, but that would not do this album nor myself any justice. Indeed, this album deserves as much praise as it can get, and with the ability to go over it again in a year so full of highlights for the Death Metal scene in general (think Tomb Mold, Hate Eternal, De Profundis, Galvanizer and so on, the mere tip of the iceberg), it gives me chance to see how it stacks up against the competition for end of year honours.
Now for the basics. Swedish? Check! Death Metal with a killer crust and an arse load of D-Beat? Check again. Any HM-2 pedals harmed during the making of this album?
That’s an absolute no brainer, in fact, a certain group called Help Me Too (dedicated to the prevention of cruelty to HM-2 pedals worldwide) was called in on several occasions to investigate.
The only answers they could get out of the band members were guttural low end grunting noises, and after considering finding a translator that could speak in Filthy Hellspawn, they decided against pressing any charges. True, all of it..
Filthy Hellspawn indeed this lot are. Opening with Reject The Cross, no fucks are given, and no one in their right mind could mistake this for anything other than sheer bloodyminded Swe – Death Madness. This style has been done almost to death over the years pardon the pun, and yet some bands keep finding ways to make us come back for more. The absolute punishing these guys (as previously stated as cruelty) give their equipment is beyond belief. No rules have been broken here as far as the whole scene goes, but the beauty lies in the delivery and the sound that these four maniacs have brought to us.
Breathing Violence continues the trend, bringing to mind such bands as fit the type, you will know of whom I speak after a listen, but although short in nature compared to some. Crawl manages to pack as much punch into each number as a desperate man fighting for his very life could. No bullshit, no long-winded shite, just ear damaging goodness. No, they are not desperate in any way shape or form, they just like to fuck you up big time, with a no-frills attitude, that makes this album the perfect little wake up call you could ever have.
The rest of the songs are pretty much on point with what I have described. No nonsense brutality, no quarter given, and none asked for, as it should be. The longest number being the last, Coven Of Servants, as widely expressive as Crawl choose to be on this one, and it in itself is a pure display of the amount of power this band has managed to conjure from both themselves and their chosen instruments. I may also add that although the influences my well stand out like the always charming Australian expression “A Dead Dingo’s Donger”, Crawl has well and truly grabbed said donger, and made it bigger and nastier and harder than you can ever imagine. Yes, I love them.
At the end of this all, one thing has to be repeated though (from my other review), and that is that Transcending Obscurity Records seem incapable at the moment of putting a foot wrong, and with good reason. Owner and main man Kunal is totally mad keen on Metal, if not more than the rest of us, and he certainly applies his time well to choosing and or digging up some of the finest talents around. One look at his roster alone is enough to make your jaw drop, and the best part about it for us Metal-Roos is that a shit ton of them are Australian.
Support the label, support this band, you won’t regret it on either front. They are still way up there on my end of year list for sure.
Release Year: 2018
Label: Transcending Obscurity Records
Category: Album
Country: Sweden
Reviewed by Andrew Cook
