Krallice – Years Past Matter

August 25, 2012 • self-released

I gotta say I have no clue why I decided to review the new Krallice (other than the fact that it's "new"). I heard their first album and thought it was pretty decent; I heard their second and was disappointed because it was basically the same thing as the first. So I skipped the third, and went straight to Years Past Matter. And it's the same thing, again. Once you've heard one Krallice song, you've heard them all, really. This album is just another continuation of their same old sound, though admittedly it hasn't gone down in quality.

If you haven't, it's basically like this: Take your average second-wave black metal style—blastbeats, tremolo guitars, and all that—and turn it into a wall of sound, focusing entirely on texture over actual notes and rhythm. Do this for an hour, and you have Krallice. It's not quite as monotonous as it sounds, but really that's the best way to describe it: blast away on some random-ish notes, maybe do a short fill or bridge here and there, repeat. The songs have very little in the way of any sort of structure, as the songs just plow their way ahead without repeating themselves much (if ever). I wonder how they manage to remember what to play next—it often seems like there's no time signature or anything to gauge where they are in the song. This is also problematic for any listener trying to keep up with where the song is going.

To be fair, this album seems a bit more diverse than their older stuff (from what I can remember). Though they don't come very often, there are a few actual discernible riffs that aren't just straight one-note tremolo. And for being a one-trick-pony kind of band, they do what they do quite well. If you happen to be in the mood for a huge slab of monolithic music like this, then Krallice is your go-to band for sure. That mood doesn't strike me often, though, but when it does Years Past Matter is still at least somewhat entertaining. When the note progressions are less random-sounding they can get really cool—the opening and ending of the third track are actually quite beautiful, for instance.

Just go into this album knowing that there isn't anything on here Krallice hasn't already done before, and it's just an excuse to listen to some blasting for an hour. That said, for anyone who hasn't heard them before, this is a fine place to start as it's still just as good as they've ever been. Its appeal to me personally is a bit limited, as I'm not a huge fan of the band, but anyone who is should definitely go for it.

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