KRALLICE — Inorganic Rites (review)

Album · 2024 · Atmospheric Black Metal

4/5 · 2024-07-08
siLLy puPPy

When it comes to insane batshit crazy avant-metal both Colin Marston and Mick Barr have cranked out some of the most unusual sounds that could still be tangibly connected to the metal universe. While their main gig KRALLICE seems to have become their stabilizing tour de force where they can exercise their experimental touches within some sort of traditional framework, this duo along with Lev Weinstein and Nick McMaster have also found a seemingly infinite number of directions to take this fearless intrepid band that lies in the murky bardo world between progressive, black and death metal. While the band took some time off in the 2010s so the members could engage in other projects, the 2020s have proven to be unusually prolific with the band releasing two albums in each year of 2022 and 2023.

Either the first or only album to emerge in 2024 is INORGANIC RITES, the 15th in the long and ever-changing canon of one of extreme metal’s most outrageously original acts of the 21st century. Following in the footsteps of last years disso-death fueled “Mass Cathexis 2 - The Kinetic Infinite” and the progressive space ambient fueled metal of “Porous Resonance Abyss” i wasn’t really sure what to expect but it seems that KRALLICE has opted for another dip into the world of progressively infused extreme metal with a heavy dose of progressive electronic and space ambient sounds to bring two distinct worlds together in a lethal dose of atmospheric metallic furor. With 10 tracks at over 66 minutes playing time, this is a lengthy beast that delivers all the expected trade marks of KRALLICE, namely knotty time signature rich progressive labyrinths of swirling sounds that erupt into black metal chaos as well as the deathened black metal vocal style that projects all the angst and gloomy despair you could hope for.

This time around though there is a LOT more focus on the synthesized parts with lengthy chunks of time dedicated to non-metal electronic space journeys that evoke classic Klaus Schulze and other Berlin School pioneers. While the band has always flaunted an atmospheric presence, on INORGANIC RITES they’ve taken it to the next level with entire tracks such as the 10 minute “Universe Ancestral Talisman” embarking on an astral plane journey complete unshackled from the lambast of blastbeats, tremolo guitar aggression and black metal dissonance. Fortified with trippy space ambient intros and intricately designed synthesized compositions that seem to overlap the metal constructs, INORGANIC RITES much of the time sounds like two separate albums played simultaneously only tailor made to overlap like a custom made sports jacket that fits in all those right places.

A strange and mondo bizarro album like pretty much any KRALLICE release has to offer, INORGANIC RITES takes the band’s progressive metal tendencies into overdrive and then fortifies it all with an almost orchestrated electronic layering effect. The results are electrifying and raising the bar in the limits of atmospheric accompaniments as often they are set so high as to become the dominant force. While the earlier tracks such as the early released “Flatlines Encircled Residue” seem to over-rely on the atmospheric touches as the primary focus, later tracks like “Fatestorm Sancturary” seem to get it right and allow the guitar, bass and percussive heft to rise to the top of the mix. The labyrinthine compositional structures are a bit hard to follow but they do unfold in a logical manner as they take the complexities of classic progressive rock and adapt them to the excesses of obnoxious extreme metal.

While this is considered black metal by some, there are moments where the band sounds more like Gorguts than anything in the black metal world but the vocal styles change it up offering even more diverse elements. While i could totally see the increased emphasis on the symphonic sounding space ambience as being annoying to some, in the crowded world of extreme metal it’s actually rather refreshing to hear something so dynamically different and not to worry extreme metalheads, KRALLICE loses none of its extreme metal intensity with all those brutal riffing sessions, moments of guitar squealing run amok and of course the bantering bass and drum furor. Fifteen albums later and KRALLICE seems like it’s just warming up and INORGANIC RITES shows the band still firing on all pistons.