renkls I finally happened across a copy of what is officially the equal longest song to fit a CD, Naked Shit’s The Legend of the Hightown Crow. It runs 79:57, an utterly massive single track album, that is incredibly difficult listening for the uninitiated. Best described as drone doom metal with some black metal and post-rock influences, this album is a huge beast indeed. So, let me break down the experience of hearing this album the whole way through for you.

Opening immediately with ten frenetic minutes of abstract guitar experimentation with skittish drum patterns and an aggressive vibe, this opening also begins to add jittery and wordless vocals/screams to the mix, growing more prominent as we hit the eleven minute mark. At this point the instruments hit a discernible riff, and the vocals (screams) start to take precedence. The drum performance is consistently fast paced until twelve minutes, where all the instruments drop off and only the drum beat remains.

A chime rings underneath the beat, and some bass bubbles as well. Thus begins a mellower section; bass, chimes and drums as well as piano (I think) move along at a far more leisurely pace then the opening ten minutes. This is a nice interlude, especially considering what preceded it. At the 19 minute mark, a spoken word section begins, rantings of an old man, discussing the legend of the high town crow itself. It fits this mellow section quite well.

At 22 minutes we get a distorted tone entering the mix, foreshadowing the next transition. At 25 minutes, it evolves into a more downbeat, doomy piece, with black metal styled vocalisations emerging underneath the mix. There is a decent bit of drone influence in this part, sustained chords and notes ringing out around the place. Far darker then what’s come before.

It sparks up again just before 29 minutes, guitar jittering out again, the drums die out and we’re left with the strange guitar spasms. Then suddenly it all stops… then starts again, with a sinister bass drone beneath it. Kind of dark ambient styled. Weird and distorted, like a giant taking breaths or growling under the instrumentation. The chirping of birds can be heard in there as well. More wordless vocalisations murmur out through the fog. Creepy section here.

Drums start to reappear at 34 minutes, clinking under the drone and bird noises. The vocals reappear, distant screams, as the drums start to build to a beat. A guitar enters, playing a repetitive tune, solemn and downbeat. The drone slowly fades out and the guitar and drums take back over, the simplistic tune being quite a good follow-up from the ominous drone. Another spoken word snippet comes at 39 minutes, and heavy doom starts to reappear, slowly drowning out the short but sweet guitar piece.

The doom becomes chaotic and female black metal vocalisations underpin the sudden turn to misery, bellowing and angry once again. This leads us to the 47 minute mark, where the doom starts to slow down, the drums forming rolls and beats. It remains quite heavy stuff through this passage. A sustained note signals the drums to kick up a gear and we move into a somewhat grooving doom riff, still quite chaotic and dissonant. Fifty minutes now and it finally hits a groove, stoner doom-esque riffing. Difficult to discern lyrics occasionally pop out of the riffing. This section does drag a little long for my tastes.

It becomes more abstract in riffing around the 57 minute mark before dying out at 59 minutes. The drums kick a few times, then a brief abstract riff and a few more kicks, along with a female vocal gargle signals the 60 minute point, and a new section. Doom riffs continue. We get a few guitar leads throughout, pretty consistent and not too surprising for doom metal. It starts getting more erratic and strange again at 67 minutes. At the 70 minute mark, the vocals begin to seep back in under the noisy chaos of the guitar and rumbling doom. It starts to disintegrate at 72 minutes, becoming a schizophrenic spiralling of drum rolls and strikes, as the vocals moan and rumble around it. A drone forms beneath the drums at 74 minutes and dirges along, whirring over a tribal drum pattern. On and on the drone and now sporadic drums go, until 77 minutes where it starts to splutter out. A doom chord drags itself through the drone and rumbles into the mix, churning up where the drums left out.

Finally it takes over the drone in a noisy, dissonant mess of a closing, before the drone returns and leads us to the final fade, eighty minutes since this strange journey began.

It’s a trip of an album, and not one that should be entered into without a full 80 minutes to sit and listen to it. The production quality isn’t terrible, but it could be a bit better, and yes, it is overlong, and the ending itself is also quite a bit abrupt. I would have liked to hear more mellow sections in the second half, but the doomy last twenty minutes was sufficient. Overall, a pretty strange album, that may find some fans among the doom crowd, but its length, excess and ability to leap genres somewhat unexpectedly at times really leaves this to be an undiscovered, eccentric gem. Although it’s an unrefined one, worth seeking out for the curious.