A Year of Music

tUMULt CORNER!

Crebain’s Night of the Stormcrow is, for the most part, one man band black metal with the usual death and thrash metal influences: ridiculously morbid and aggressive lyrics, galloping drum machine rhythms, and the distortion turned up to 14 on everything. But for ten glorious seconds at the beginning of “Time to Die” the po-faced façade cracks, as Crebain stages an aural drama about some jolly Swiss lass singing a jolly little tune, only to fall shrieking beneath some sort of hideous assault by a jolly, madly cackling Crebain. It’s ridiculous and sublime. He should do more of that.

The ending of “The Cries of My Motherland” samples some beautiful a capella Eastern European / Middle Eastern folk singing in multi-part harmony, too, this time without interruption by the malign forces of darkness. Nothing out of the ordinary, but it’s still very pretty, especially in the midst of all the churning thrash.