I was intrigued when this one turned up. Black Crow King is essentially a one man work apart from some help in the guitar department from Corvus an artist who Metal Archives list as ‘international’ and his webpage as ‘Un.’ I guess that means he does not want to be pigeon holed as being synonymous with the music from whatever area he resides in then. This is labelled as a ‘soul-snuffing, dirgeful paean to crows, death, nature and misanthropy’ which sounds great; after all they do not get referred to as a murder of crows without some sort of justification. It is also said to be for fans of Gnaw Their Tongues, Burzum, Negura Bunget, Thou and Korperschwache, perfect!

Clocking the running time of these 6 tracks at over an hour I sat down for the duration, quickly upping the volume level in the hope of getting the most out of what I expected to be a pretty basic production. First track ‘The Great Ones’ comes in with fuzzy and strident guitar and bass lines and a raspy vocal. It sounds primitive and incredibly amateur, it sounds like a rehearsal studio recording and a couple of people ineptly having a jam. It does not sound good or like any of the aforementioned artists. The rasps stop the strums quieten to a more sedate sound and then it starts again, there are no drums as yet. Already I feel my soul is indeed snuffed! Add some feedback and some severe out of tune playing that one wonders if it’s done on purpose and keep it all going for eight minutes and you are left with…. A headache. Can it improve? Let’s hope so. Quick bit of tinkling keyboards low ebbing bass and we are slowly off into ‘The Shadow Falls’ the rasps are back angrier and someone is slowly hitting cymbal and drums at a pace like a snail in a race. I am beginning to wonder if this is all a big joke.

It all carries on, there is little deviation, one track nullifies the extremities, the next carries on in exactly the same vein. This is a painful listen for bloody masochists and those that like minimalism for the sake of it, regardless of any skill. ‘Vengeance’ starts to get beneath the skin, it annoys and agitates which is probably the intention but as it builds with more coming in to the music at least there is something to concentrate on before it suddenly downs tools and stops. Violin mourns over the start of ‘Grotesque Existence’ before those bleak cackles bite again and things go ugly, abrasive and discordant.

It really is an effort not to turn this off and get past the garbled caustic mess that is Crowbait, I could quite happily murder old Corvus for inflicting this upon me now. Finally we pitch up at ‘Excarnation Ritual’ and again it’s one of the slowest most soul destroying 17 minutes of my life.

Don’t get me wrong I have no problems with music like this, be it extreme, experimental, minimalist and down-tempo. I loved the last 77 minute one track Bunkur album for example, an album that I see on the aforementioned Metal Archives site has one review getting it 0%! This however is just too up its own butt, too pretentious and too trying to be arty for its own sake for me, it is also an uncoordinated mess. At least it allows me to give a low score after a slew of great releases at last. My debt is paid, an album never to be listened to again.

(2/10 Pete Woods)  

http://www.myspace.com/black.crow.king