Review Summary: Death-soaked artcore plucked from the vines of pure insanity.
I'm not sure I agree with the ranking system for
Starkweather's Croatoan. I don't think a numerical system of measurement is adequate to describe what is essentially a descent into madness put to disc. I think buckets of slime, ripped out toenails, or a various number of nights listening to only
Kesha would be more apropos.
In case your wondering, the official descriptor of
Starkweather is "metalcore". I suppose they could be loosely associated as a forefather to the current batch of noisemakers, but to liken this band to that genre is to call the lust scene from the movie
Se7en "normal" sex. It's brutal, it is intense... probably moreso than a lot of people can stomach. I've only been able to listen to the album a few times since its release, and even in my short time with this demon spawn it's left an indelible mark.
The opening helldragger "Slither" uses just enough typical groove and a riff that's highly reminiscent of "Vacuity" by
Gojira, only it came out several years before "Vacutiy" and it is endlessly more evil. What it gives way to, as the album latches its tendrils into the tender parts of your brain, can only be described as a nuclear powered mindf*ck. The atonal art metal riffs heave and break apart like some sort of sick, poisoned tide on the wall of your mind, breaking it down with a caustic acidity that corrodes even the deepest, most pleasant thoughts into malformed amalgamations of horror and insanity, shooting a plagued thread through your entire psyche's fabric until it has you in its clutches.
Not to masturbate on metaphors, but
Croatoan is an epic-sized, atonal, multilayered, multisonic, hour long trip into the brains of what I'm either assuming are some very, very disturbed individuals... or people who can fake it amazingly well. For a band with such low output, I would hope that they'd release a groundbreaker each time. I can't speak for their other albums, but this one is an experience that pretty much has to be heard to be believed.
I'm not going to track-by-track this, but believe me when I say the off-key singing and playing do nothing but add to the feeling that your are listening to the soundtrack of psychopathy.
Starkweather's monster digs deep with its diseased doom and alkaline hardcore tendencies, spiced by tinklings of arpeggios that enter the sonicsphere on fire and fall deep into discordance, while the singer screams and squeals choked rasps or belts out spherical psychosis in a demented lullabye way that will leave you imagining him doing so with a drool-soaked toothy grin, Cheshire Cat proper. Darkness and everything.
The only thing holding this album back from a 5.0 is the fact it has no real staying power... no endurance. But all it throws is haymakers, and it's worth the price just for the initial listen. Do it by yourself, with some good headphones. You many not be the same person afterwards.
It's a heavy album, in more ways than one, and will more than likely leave you exhausted after the final note has passed and left you in your own silence, a small amount of static whispering from your speakers the only anchor that lets you know that what you experienced was real.
