An Autumn For Crippled Children - Everything

Covers like this are usually a good indication of what you're in for.

While it might sound like some small town fundraiser started in memory of Timmy the octoplegic, it is, in fact, the name of a symphonically driven black metal band out of the Netherlands (we'll stick with ACC to make life easier). A dense and claustrophobic production coupled with trite keyboards, made it a surprise to find out that this isn't a one man black metal band, but rather a three piece (there are credits to a drummer, but I don't believe that these are real drums).

To get right to it, Everything is the latest release from this band. The album itself is  a very spotty record  that jumps from keyboard driven sections that are boring and over the top to dense, powerful walls of steel wool, shoe gaze-y guitars gone scary and forlorn. This sums up the first two tracks as "Forever Never Fails" is as poppy as black metal could ever get and then "Formlessness" explores a very post-rock influenced sound and, for the most part, lacks keyboards. Halfway through the second track reminds me a lot of Xasthur on a good day and Alcest circa Le Secret. This is a very powerful, and well done section that shows the potential behind ACC if they focused their energy on atmosphere and the guitar.

This is pretty much how the rest of the album carries on as the band jumps from silly, synth driven tracks that sound amateurish and over the top, to dreary slicing guitars, mangled screams and dense sections where they all come together.

There was a period in my life where I listened to almost anything labeled black metal and when I found bands like Xasthur to be the creme dela creme, with ACC I feel like I'm back there again. There are countless, forgettable bands that did what ACC do and have never been thought of again by myself, and there are others such as Caïna and Lifelover who have what makes ACC interesting without what makes them not. ACC do somethings right, but the merry elves keyboards and the drum machine really kill what what does work. The band would be far better suited to bask in dense, droning sections and pour out into post-rock like explosions.

The album leaves me thinking "well, maybe next time they'll get it right." Truth be told, I don't care if there is a next time. If Slayer went right from Haunting the Chapel to Seasons in the Abyss I would say "they had something going, but lost it somehow." What's there is there, and what An Autumn for Crippled Children have is nothing worth revisiting as handfuls have done it better, and continue to do so.

Resuming Ending the Circle of Life...

British melancholic black metalers Lyrinx released an EP back in 2009 titled Ending the Circle of Life. Seemingly insignificant in the sea of depressive black metal, what was then (and maybe still is) popular,  Lyrinx unjustly fell to the wayside as bands such as Xasthur, Shining, and an unfathomable amount of USBM became the toast of the bedroom scene. 

Ending the Circle of Life skipped over banal keyboards, absurd whining vocals, and the overall stiffness that came with doing the whole goddamn album on a computer (not to mention my biggest enemy, drum machines). And while they fall prey to conventions of the genre (over the top titles) they do hit the nail on the head. 

Much like Nyktalgia, Lynrix (post-Nihilistic Purity) rely on core elements; a modest production and well written and performed music. The strength of Ending the Circle of Life was the song writing as each of the two tracks covered an enormous gap of time and distance as they progressed like larvae to a dried up moth. "No Failure in Suicide" sways back and forth utilizing a brilliantly catchy guitar riff and great drumming until it builds up into a mid tempo blast beat and a complete outpouring of emotion and energy. The song finally struck me as I worked one day, nearly ten hours straight on an awful silk-screening project, as it must have played in my playlist for a major portion of those ten hours. Every time I rediscover this EP it is amazing how content I feel with just these two songs.

With all of this in mind, after nearly two years of silence, Lyrinx are set to release their full length in late 2011 through Avantgarde Music, entitled Restriction and Failure.

If I lived in the U.K I'd be pretty depressed too.

Taken from Avantgarde Music's page, and written by members of Lyrinx, about the upcoming album they had this to say:

"This album focuses on the drone-like soul destroying nature of capitalism (or the system), and provides and analysis of the illusory nature of reality. Consciousness could be considered to be a miracle, yet the human spirit is divided and crushed by process, tax, and social structures...Musically this album will represent the old (Nihilistic Purity), and new (Ending the Circle of Life) but will also include elements of progressive metal and post-rock melancholy"

While I'm sold on the gimmick (it's nice to see a black metal band say something political that isn't in support of National Socialism (although this treads dangerously close)), the idea of progressive metal and post-rock makes me think of later Amesoeurs. I have a problem particularly with the "progressive" tag, but we'll just have to wait and see.