Right on time for the beginning of fall, Swedish monsters of Craft deliver another example of perfect Black Metal: Rawer like a stranded whale, dirtier like the whore of babylon and heavier like a tank Void blasts through your head and leaves you like a bloody wreck after more than 40 minutes of carnage. There are Black Metal bands that play more technical. There are Black Metal bands that create a more sinister athmosphere. But there are barely any Black Metal bands sounding as heavy and mean as Craft does.
Craft – Void – Succumb to Sin by craftblackmetal
Mostly, Void rages in midtempo spheres. Due to this, the album reminds a lot of Hellhammer/Celtic Frost, which isn’t a good thing – it’s a.m.a.z.i.n.g. You have to wait for the third song to hear the first really fast part. The effect it has is quite terrifying of course.
The basic riffs and structures are kept simple, but not dumb. Everything Craft does proves enormous song writing skills, ideas and an relentless heaviness. A bunch of really cool solos and loads of creepy, evil melodies – think of old Immortal or Thorns – grab you by the throat to bang your head. The vocals are harsh and really fucked up – NOX sounds as if he’d gargle on nails and broken glass before taking the mic.
What’s outstanding about Void as well is the production. It sounds super heavy, but unpolished and raw and still leaves enough space for small details to be found by close listening. All in all this record is a total banger and I strongly recommend it to everyone who’s desperately seeking for record in the vain of Hellhammer, Celtic Frost, Samael or Darkthrone to bring him/her through the grim winter of 2011/2012 (I’m sorry I have to talk about the winter already, but right now it’s really freaking cold outside). Uh!
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