Not to be confused with Georgia’s excellent, psychotic sludgers Crawl, the Crawl in question here is a one man blackened sleaze sludge project helmed by one sicko that plays bass, drums and vocals.  The fact that organic instruments are used yet filtered through relentless torrents of distortion gives the record an industrial feel akin to the mighty filth wallop of The Whorehouse Massacre, the forgotten and underrated Grave in the Sky’s sole recorded bluesy blackened industrial masterpiece Cutlery Hits China: English for the Hearing Impaired, Aussie lunatics Halo, early Godflesh, Darkthrone, Skullflower, Burning Witch, Corrupted, Throbbing Gristle, Merzbow and Burzum.  Simply put, this guy is most likely a maniac with torsos strung up in his shed.  There are 3 EPs and a full-length under the Crawl banner to date; with the annihilating sewage dump stinkout of the 2^nd LP, This Sad Cadav’r, marking the 5^th release from the project overall.  It’s evil shit with literally no concern for your safety and sanity whatsoever.

For those with sensitive ears, the door is thattaway unless Crawl devoured it along with everything else in the room.  Opener “I” employs a mimimalist drone of vinyl record warping, distant feedback howls and trance-y ambience akin to Skullflower circa Orange Canyon Mind.  Once the deranged, anti-matter drumming flips gravity on its ass through a tornado of feedback, the album’s first riff takes hold; perhaps there shouldn’t be but there’s an element of form to the proceedings.  Said riff is a dirge from Satan’s asscrack as it spews forth sparse notations into a slovenly, head-nodding groove sliced to pieces by an avalanche of white-noise distortion and hideously deformed vocal screams.  Aussie noise-rippers Halo and specifically their mutant abomination Guattari (From the West flows Grey Ash and Pestilence) is the nearest comparison with the clattering industrial doom of that band shaken up like nitroglycerin by some black metal atmospherics.  This is the soundtrack to eating trash in a gutter while rogue police officers beat you to death with bloody pork chops.  It’s not the kind of stuff meant to cheer you up but Crawl is damn good at making it real and really fuckin’ dangerous sounding.  Eventually it drones out into the cosmos in a looping riff, feedback and finally whooping bass amp psychedelia.

“II” ratchets up the tempo to a pained, amputee shamble as the drumming makes use of an extra beat or two and the riffage grinds its way forth a half-step faster.  It’s not long that the battered husk of Crawl can maintain the octane and soon throbbing, gristly sludge riffs lay down a hopeless pillow smothered groove.  Nasty vocals are barely distinguishable as human and if you listen closely enough you’ll hear several slight deviations from the main intro riff.  That pulverizing hell manna from Grave in the Sky is a damn good point of reference in addition to the blackened facial sores of Darkthrone/Burzum, as well as Throbbing Gristle and Halo’s crippling industrial noise showers.  Meant to be listened to chronologically from the first piece to the last, endnote “III” enters with demonic spoken vocals intoned from behind a gas mask in the midst of a mustard gas fog; the dominating drumming peppered with lively snare fills and much more forward propulsion this time around as the desolate bass riffs have the most intense push heard yet on the record.  Finally all structure is lost, abandoned in a power tool murder the likes of which Merzbow, Bastard Noise and Gristle made their bread n’ butter during the genre’s formative days.

This Sad Cadav’r is absolutely gonna wow a select few and piss everybody else off for being unlistenable garbage.  Due to the fact there is actual music happening here, Crawl won me over and these three songs make for a continuous pummeling that leaves lasting scars on the eardrums.  There are a lot of foul influences brewed together and they unfold in an immaculate wall of noise that’s as angry as it gets.  Sludge, doom, noise, black metal and power electronics freaks should find something to love on this musical wreck of man.  Sick, solid stuff that the sane probably wouldn’t touch but I’ll enjoy as much as possible…time to explore the rest of discography!

[Visit the band's website]

---

Comments