Review Summary: ??Crystalline Exhaustion is a synonym for “sensitive snowflake”
Krallice is an experimental black metal band with a track record of releasing music too often within some yearspans, and not at all within others. Grand. Their work as of late thrives (read: depends) on dense atmospheres evocative of cosmic horror and other eerie cult bollocks, and their latest record
Crystalline Exhaustion follows 2021’s
Demonic Wealth and its halitotic adventures in lo-fi dungeon synth, now housed in a cleaner set of blastbeat-ridden synthscapes yet destined to inspire similar mysterious-darktimes. Returning fans will find much to delight in here; well-groomed adults can at least appreciate it from a safe distance.
The central Deal can be brought down to Krallice’s struggle to integrate the pads and chimes of their synth division with full band metal performances and forward-thinking songwriting, to which end
Crystalline Exhaustion is a mixed bag. This is in part a consequence of the production choices, which benefit the album’s expansive side and complement its synthscapes perfectly while cloaking the guitars and drums in a thin layer of collateral murk: enough to blunt their edge yet not enough for a lo-fi statement. As a result, most of the tracks built around interplay between the record’s ethereal sheen and its metal pyrotechnics end up muddled: fortuitously the shortest track here, “Telos” is particularly unappealing in this regard, but the whole first half of the record frequently meanders in a jumbled effort to endow each side with parity of prominence, a push-pull approach where almost every part of the arrangement is either overly in- or frustratingly out-of- focus.
The second half fares better. The heaviest song here, “Archlights” opts for a propulsive approach, sticking hard and fast to a familiar metal sense of momentum and using synths to expand its tone without dictating its pacing; “Dismal Entity” does the opposite and devotes entire respective sections to ambient synths and coursing metal, allowing the push/pull between the two to take shape in wider structural arcs rather than within the arrangement on a second-to-second basis.
These two are far more clearly formed and satisfying than the opening run, but the album’s greatest triumph by far is the self-titled closer. This song devotes almost five minutes to an ethereal opening (almost) gorgeous enough to banish the memory of any suspect choices made thitherto, and when the whole band step into the frame, they bear a new sense of restraint and cohesion, playing entirely in service to the atmosphere and sounding all the better for it. Unsurprisingly enough, the song’s reverie is not to last – the lights go out, oversized luminous eyes appear from all sides, ominous chords trip over one another in nauseous pits of trepidation, the gloom turns to quicksand turns to concrete, Barr/Marston/BDSM Satan scream out indecipherable ontological fuckery in the kind of voice you can see melting recording tape, and things get genuinely unsettling for a good while. It’s a simple linear arc tackled masterfully, all arms of the band’s arsenal united with a common focus; the track’s fourteen minutes waft away in a plume of dark fog, and Krallice land a gripping refutation against anyone doubting that such heavy investment in synthscapes was a worthwhile idea.
And so,
Crystalline Exhaustion ends up a successful experiment with a few caveats.
Atmospheric is typically a descriptor for pieces that take on a life irrespective of form or structure, a specific sense of something wider, more significant than any individual flaws.
No-one cares if the vocalist has a turd in his throat – it’s part of the atmosphere!, etc.. Krallice’s atmospheric sound may often scan as unconvincing camouflage for shapeless writing or homogeneous dynamics, but once they straighten their ideas board and play as what sounds like a coherently coordinated band, they redeem the label from an excuse to a credential. It’s not enough for an even tracklist, but it certainly does make
Crystalline Exhaustion required listening for the wretches of the atmoblack circuit, and on top of it that it even hocus-pocuses up a little good faith for whatever Krallice’s next outing with this sound turns out to be. Goodness knows that’s a welcome surprise.
