cassette craze chronicles XXIII (feat. ANGEL OLSEN, CHAT PILE, CRYPTAE and EXALTATION)

 

I guess it's time for one of these again! Actually I could already write about five new tapes in my collection today, but since I've already shot the picture the fifth will have to wait for part XXIV... Let's start with a regular guest of the series!

ANGEL OLSEN - Big Time (2022)

Is Angel Olsen too schmaltzy? Yes, sometimes she is! Is she too Country on this album? Hell yes, most definitely! Is she too Pop? Does that really matter?
The thing is that the US singer/songwriter appearantly likes to release those singles which make me doubt if the album isn't too something for me, but ultimately I come around loving it. With "Big Time" I'm probably still in the midths of that process, because at least during the first half the Country Kitsch is really front and center here and makes it quite a challenge. However, even though Angel Olsen really milks this cow to exhaustion, she still finds ways to change course just enough and just in time to keep it interesting. My favorite parts are of course those, where she jums from the intimate to the noisy and orchestral like in the chorus of "Go Home".
While I doubt that I will love "Big Time" as a whole as much as "All Mirrors", "Whole New Mess" or even the "Aisles" EP, I applaud the artist on the dedication to find a new specific sound for each of her releases. Also especially the B side actually features a couple of extraordinarily strong songs.

CHAT PILE - God's Country (2022)

While we're already at Americana, let's get on with this harsh and real description of "God's Country"! Ok, Chat Pile may push the limits of that term, since they are actually playing a brutal bastard of Noise Rock, Crust and Sludge Metal with a very discernably shouting and speaking vocalist, who channels a lot of palpable anger.
I haven't done the math to find out whether the band deserves the exact amount of hype it receives right now, but I know that already the second track "Why" had me completely sold on the album, just with the simple truth and honest delivery of its message alone: "Why? Why? Why do people have to live outside? I couldn't survive out on the streets Why? Why do people have to live outside? I couldn't survive out on the streets I've never had to push All my shit around In a shopping cart Have you?" You seldom hear a cry for social justice delivered so on point.
Combined with Chat Pile's unfiltered raw energy and their surprisingly fresh take on brutal noise music "God's Country" couldn't be a heavier crushing hammer of anxiety - or a more desperate document of our time.

EXALTATION - Under Blind Reasoning (2022)
[MY REVIEW ON VEIL OF SOUND.COM ]

Every musical wave which has receded eventually makes its comeback. And if there's one of those I can fully get behind it's the recent rise of Death Metal in all its glorious forms. Not that I am immersing myself deeply in it or would buy a signifant number of albums... but it's just a comfortable  feeling to know that the real deal is out there alive and kicking - and spitting out albums like "Under Blind Reasoning", which in its core is probably eighty percent pure Morbid Angel "Gateways To Annihilation" worship. And since this filthy New Zealand Death Metal horde just absolutely excels at the emulation of the old school masters, adds some sick modern dissonant touches and fills the remaining twenty percent with great original ideas, this short but sweet onslaught simply is nothing but fun. Just what I want my good old classic Death metal to be!

CRYPTAE - Capsule (2022)

Same label as Exaltation (Sentient Ruin Laboratories), but a a totally different take on the Death Metal revival. It's not the first time that Kees Peerdeman and René Aquarius smashed the idea of Death Metal to pieces and rebuild it as something sicker, crunchier and somehow even more menacing. Their middle finger to genre expectations however has grown longer in the two years since "Nightmare Traversal".
The duo incorporates more unlikely influences, even going as far as pairing the best recent Metal revival (Death Metal, duh!) with the one noone in the whole wide world ever wanted... yes I'm talking about the deservedly despised return of urgh... I don't even want to type it... Nu Metal.
And because these guys are the musical extremist sickos they are, it's of course brainmeltingly awesome anyway. More than ever Cryptae's over the top cranked to twelve sound really doesn't have any blueprint. My best comparison wouldn't even be one which I think sounds very similar. But all in all the furor, madness and variety of "Capsule" gives me an overall feeling which is quite close to listening to Wormrot's "Hiss". Plus that special Dead Neanderthals fuck everything avantgarde note of course.
Cryptae are just a very special kind of bleurgh. And I love it! Definitely one of the most unique and very best extreme metal albums of 2022.  

CRYPTAE - Nightmare Traversal

At this point I can't even say whether it's just the natural progression of my music taste or if it's one of those 2020 things, but I have noticed that a lot of the stuff I'm drawn to these days tends to be either on the meditative, other-worldly, transcendend side - or from the complete opposite end of the spectrum.

Well, in case you're familiar with their "Vestigial" EP you already know that Cryptae are operating on the rather agitated side of this balance. This band is yet another outlet for René Aquarius' (Dead Neanderthals) love for sonic extremism after all.

CRYPTAE - Nightmare Traversal (Tape) (2020)

WTF!?

That's probably the first impression most listeners will have as soon as "Nightmare Traversal", the opener and title track of this album is unleashed upon them. And if not - wtf is wrong with you?

The distortion is so misanthropically loud and overdriven, so absolutely over the top exaggerated, that you can easily miss what kind of music is actually played here.

It feels a little like one of those 1990s extreme metal demo tapes, where the band was too inexperienced to realize that apart from themselves noone could understand a thing, because the fucked-up production ruined fucking everything.
Cryptae have somehow captured this spirit on purpose and made it work. Because even though this shit sounds abrasive and sick in the head as fuck, you can actually identify what is happening here.

Which despite the alienating layer, which the ferocious sound puts around it, for the most part is pretty straight-forward, traditional old-school in-your-face death metal with grindcore attacks and vacuum cleaner vocals. Zero melodies, crude transitions and all.

Compared to the nineteen-minute longtrack of "Vestigial", which immediately cried avantgarde, assholes! and hinted a lot more the aestheteics of black and post metal and even tiny traces of jazz infuences, the seven shorter pieces of "Nightmare Traversal" rather seem to be a recontextualization of a very pure, classic style.
Even though the second half of the album more and more voivodish ("Monastic Tomb") or even not-sure-if-even-metal parts ("Cronos") sneak in, it always returns to orthodox 90's death metal mayhem.

The only difference is that back then it just wouldn't have sounded that bonkers infernal.

Ok, that's not wholly true. It could have sounded similarily extreme, yet would have been utterly unlistenable, because the rehearsal room home studio concept just miserably failed. Yeah, I know, I'm repeating my point here.

Ultimately Cryptae are just an outright brutal, immensly satisfying joy of a sucker punch on the ears. 

CRYPTAE - Vestigial

Du musst raus, aber das Kissen ist so schön weich und Du bist noch müde?

Ich hab da was, das helfen könnte. Neunzehn Minuten Schmerz am Morgen haben noch niemandem geschadet, oder?

CRYPTAE - Vestigial (download) (2019)

Wenn ich hier digitale Ein-Longtrack-EPs bespreche ("Vestigial" ist allerdings auch in physischen Formaten erhältlich), dann handelt es sich ja meistens um den neuesten Irrsinn aus dem Hause Dead Neanderthals. Und tatsächlich sollen sich unter den nicht namentlich genannten Mitgliedern der Extrem-Metal-Advantgardisten von Cryptae auch tote prähistorische Europäer befinden, sprich: es ist René Aquarius, der hier brutal die Felle verdrischt.

Die Soundästhetik von Cryptae ist irgendwo zwischen Death Metal, Grindcore und verstimmten Sludge / Post-Metal anzusiedeln. Mit einem Unterton, von dem man nicht weiß, ob er eher Black Metal oder Free Jazz ist. Schrägkrankschön auf jeden Fall. Der Gesang ist Growling vom Typus runtergepitchter Staubsauger. Das Songwriting ist im Grunde schon abwechslungsreich und anspruchsvoll, aber dennoch von kathartisch primitiver Stumpfheit.

Wer Imperial Triumphant, Pan-Thy-Monium, die finster brutale Seite von Kayo Dot und musikalisch kanalisierte, aber nicht glattgebügelte rohe Gewalt so schätzt wie ich, der kann hiermit große Freude haben. Keine Sorge, die letzte Minute, welche etwas an Zaum erinnert, stellt den Seelenfrieden schon wieder her. Wahrscheinlich. Vielleicht.

Sick!