Being from Norway I was hoping that Kraanium might offer up something a little different with their third album in their chosen style of burpy slammy gore addled brutal death metal, but as it stands, Kraanium stick to the tenets of the genre rigidly and the end result will no doubt appease the genres fans.

All of the requisite elements are here – unreadable logo, misogynistic themes, disturbing samples (i.e “what the difference between jam and jelly? you cant jelly your cock up a  dead girls ass“), gore filled cover art and depraved, coprophillic and necrophillic song titles (“Slurping the Vaginal Pus”, ” Orgy of Cannibalistic Fornication”, “Crack Whore Pounding” (are there crack whores in Norway? I thought they were a delightfully American specialty),”Coprophagial Asphyxiation”), down tuned chugging slams amid tinny blast beats and unintelligible gurgled, grunted vocals. It’s all here, including the genres most ailing element – shitty snare drum sound that makes all the blast beats sound like they are being played on a set of red plastic cups.

That one negative aside, Kraanium is indeed very apt at this style, and drum sound aside, I found Post Mortal Coital Fixation a repeated listen- not very common for me when it comes to this style. The albums 35 minutes is a perfect balance between massive, massive slams and simplistic blasts. Obviously, from my earlier comment about the drums, which hit home even worse during the blasts, the slams are the albums best part and Kraanium do them very well. Possibly some of the more impressive ones in my limited exposure to the style. They aren’t completely overdone and forced (i.e Waking the Cadaver), but just add a simple, satisfying heft amid the tinny salvos. It’s kind of pointless singling out tracks or moments as the album is either a blast or a slam, but the opening title track, “Baptized in Boiling Sewage”, “Sculptures in Perverse Suffering”  and the albums longest cut (4 whopping minutes) “Stillborn Necrotic Fuck Feast” all bring the mammoth slams in spades.

A cover of Abominable Putridity‘s “Entrails Full of Vermin” closes out the album, but I would have never known it was a cover if I didn’t have the CD in front of me for reference. But I’m guessing fans of these kinds of bands aren’t here for standout solos or tracks but just a forceful sonic pummeling while they jack off to Faces of Death and German shit porn, right? And this should fit the bill perfectly.

 

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