Review Summary: The Crinn produces high quality music, for those interested...
The Crinn promises to "Kill Curiosity"... And they sure do! This is a sick piece of jazzy emoviolence that meets an equally sick piece of technical hardcore. There really are no limits to how far these guys will take the madness. This is like hearing
Mr. Bungle going hardcore punk, with Mike Patton being castrated (whilst doing the vocal tracks), and Trevor Dunn & Co on some seriously bad LSD. Or perhaps old-sk00l
Incubus on crystal meth, with Johnny Whitney from
The Blood Brothers doing the vocals? Anyhow, this is weird stuff. But nevertheless interesting stuff. The experimental music is provided by musicians of the highest and finest quality, and the infamously weird vocals are performed by the very easily recognizable vocalist,
Jonathan Peterson. I'd recommend this album to everybody who are looking for complex and variated melodies combined with a unique voice. This is not something for people who just listen to the radio charts every now and then. This is definitely something for the more passionately interested type. This is "sci-fi core"!
From start 'till end - this is a masterpiece. Though only clocking in just about over a quarter of an hour long, it really is an unforgetable album.
The Tracks
"Mr. Sandman bring me a gun."
It starts off with a sample of the famous "Mr. Sandman Bring Me A Dream"... Then all of the sudden, it explodes! ... Into madness. Into mayhem. The music is heavy, as heavy can be - and the vocals tormented. Bassist Chad White and drummer Corey Melom really set the (HEAVY) standards for the rest of the album here. An extra-ordinary album opener. Corey proves to be the perhaps most interesting modern extreme math/technical metal drummer today, and Chaddie one of the most unique bassists. He never plays a boring, unnoticeable pattern. It's always very grand, and special.
After listening to this track, you might ask yourself "can they really maintain all the passion and pressure throughout the album? It can't possible be achievable..."
"It's a bird, It's a plane. No!... It's a baseball bat to the face."
But wait... they somehow manage to not only maintain their current level of heavyness, they even take it to a brand new level! This track is another heavy, heavy, heavy one. It aims for the gut, and hits you hard. Almost too hard. Chaddie's bass is very deep and (you guessed it) heavy. Corey's drumming is equally creative and impressing galore as it was on the previous track. Their outstanding guitarist, Cole Leonard shreds himself to new heights, as he creates a complex and consistent jazzy pattern, unlike what you'll hear from more "standard" metal bands. Jonny... Jonny just makes weird noises. You can't really describe his way of singing; you have to "experience" it.
"Red lips tell bloody secrets."
It suggests to be the natural highlight of the album, mainly caused by its unexpected shifts in both tempo and genre. This is a kind of arrogant, ambitious, epic tune, with even more passionate and intense lyrics. In between poetic little (weird) lines such as "
Emotion is nothing but commotion in your tea party of un-affection" are the desperate roaring and shouting of lines like E.G. "
Because love ain't a religion! Our love was science fiction!!!". Jonny demonstrates a poisonous ability of writing deep, but nevertheless effective and catchy lyrics.
Musically - this song goes in another direction than the previous ones, without abandoning their sound completely. Not as aggressive all the way through as the previous tracks, but even more experimental. You have violin-driven gothic bits, nü metalish parts, and who knows what. And they pull all the styles off remarkably well. They demonstrate their true potentials as composing geniuses, with heaps of identity. This song WILL blow you away. Like it or not, it's something you've never heard; and you probably won't hear anything quite like it in the future either.
"The horses are playing piano again. "
Cranking up the speed, we have this psychopathic, trashing song "The horses are playing piano again.", in which Jonny states "
Do horses play piano? No. didn't think so, oh well. When this dance is done we will both be doomed. Our love will be ruined and the horses will be screwed." The lyrics aren't all that... sane, in other words.
The Crinn just alienates themselves more from the mainstream on every song. You won't ever see this on MTV, that's for sure.
"A fool's poetry."
Now over to the jazzy album closure. "A fool's poetry." is probably the most accessible (if I could possibly use such a word to describe any Crinn-related stuff) song on this album. With something that could be recognized as a somewhat sing-a-long-like chorus. But don't get me wrong, they haven't gone sane or anything like that... The statement "
ARREEEBBBAAAA!!!!!" which you'll find some minutes out in the song helps me to prove that. The lyrics on this song is pretty poetic/stupid (I don't know for sure). I'm not quite sure if Jonny's a brilliant writer, or a dumbass. You can't really tell, considering lines like "
The child with no toes knows the way through danger goes" doesn't really make THAT much sense, all together now do they? But as I opened this paragraph with, this is the jazziest song. Especially Cole's guitar shredding will grab a hold of your attention and never let go, there's no doubt about that. This track seem to fit his special sound perfectly.
Kills Curiosity
This is an insane (mini)album. It will definitely blow you away. The maybe most unique modern extreme math/tech punk metal band produces the maybe most unique modern extreme math/tech punk metal album.
