The sophomore outing from The Crawling sees the band expand upon the miserable remit of their debut to incorporate a seething sense of disgust that is palpable across the six tracks on offer. Formed in 2014, in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, the band’s first release, 2015’s choking on concrete, set a morose tone with harsh, guttural vocals set against intense, doom-infused riffing. Now back with the punishing Wolves and the hideous white, the band demonstrate how a punishing schedule on the live circuit has lent yet greater weight to their venomous offerings.
Kicking off with the six-minute title track, The Crawling immediately carve out a bone-dry atmosphere of decay and despondency that harks back to gothic-era Paradise Lost. The vocals, delivered as a parched rasp, are surprisingly clear, and the lyrics, shot through with a nihilistic bleakness, slowly sink into the soul, blotting out the daylight as the song progresses. It is in this half-light that the aptly-titled still no sun emerges as a faster, more deathly piece of music. Still possessed of a raddled atmosphere that conjures images of urban decay, still no sun takes the harrowing might of (very) early My Dying Bride and pummels the listener mercilessly throughout its five-minute run-time. Surprisingly, Drowned in shallow water sees the band head into post-metal territory more reminiscent of Neurosis than traditional doom exponents. It’s a mesmerizing piece of music, multi-faceted and with a dark sense of melody that slowly absorbs the attention until there’s nothing left but the churning riffs and subtle dynamic shifts. It is a masterpiece and it’s very much as if the album has been leading up to this one, sublime piece of resolutely dark-hearted music.
After the monumental showcase that is drowned in shallow water the band return to a more familiar death-doom template for A time for broken things. A grueling piece of music that speaks of an irreparable onslaught of self-reproach, A time… is a horrifying listen, although the stately solo that breaks through the dense fog of riffage helps to draw the listener in. The molasses thick crawl of Rancid Harmony takes the listener even farther into the Stygian depths of the band’s imagination. Deftly shifting between verse so doom laden they elicit a fight-or-flight response, to churning passages of weighty death metal, The Crawling paint a bleak picture of humanity on the cusp of self-extinction. After so much untrammeled brutality, it comes as a surprise that closing track Promises and parasites opens on a clean note, although this eerie illusion of calm is soon revealed to be nothing more than a blind as thunderous drums announce the arrival of something altogether nastier. It sees the album out on a high note, the spectral aura of grimy doom summoned one last time before the disc spins to an end.
With a powerful, yet atmospheric, production that plays to the band’s strengths without succumbing to the temptation of over-polishing their sound, The Crawling have improved upon their debut with this morose offering. Although the music is withering when the band so choose, it is the sense of atmosphere – the choking, cloying sense of dread that The Crawling instill –that sets them apart. Well worth checking out, Wolves and the hideous white is a superb offering. 9
