To me, the name Crowhurst has the aura of a sinister-sounding public school. In fact this band from Los Angeles specialise in experimental black industrial noise. Their lead member has been likened to a 70’s Miles Davis, which as an observation was lost on me, I must confess.
What’s for sure is that it’s impossible to escape the industrial synthesiser process as this noisefest gets under way. I recognise a semblance to Blut aus Nord in the dark pattern. The synthesiser sound has become a drone as “Take this Pain Away” gets under way. It grinds on, with a vocalist growling to a flood of obscure, post-metal type industrial sounds. It’s like life itself has been drained of life. The echoes of the vocalist swing indistinctly between the drone, the periodic sounds of crashing drums and general noise. “The End” has the quality of a psychedelic mantra but the soporific and frightful mood remains the same. This develops into the nightmarish, anarchic bleakness of “No Saviours”. A voice murmurs instinct nothings. It’s all designed to cause discomfort and disorientation.
The pièce de résistance, or I presume it is as it’s thirteen and a half minutes long, is “Dried Blood and Old Earth”. A series of ambient and dark tones set the scary scene. The scary scene morbidly and repetitively continues with its progress, if that’s what it is. Changes in form are subtle. Fuzzy cosmic noise like sounds appear, and it’s a case of hearing something which is quite inspirational, which is odd as it seems to be depicting cold vacuums and nothing.
I thought that “II” was an interesting album, especially “Dried Blood and Old Earth” whose minimalist range captured the philosophy, which at least was my understanding of what Crowhurst sought to represent. Prior to that, I didn’t find it exceptionally original or awe-inspiring but I cannot fault Crowhurst for failing to exploit ambient noise structures and portray ghastly landscapes throughout this darkest of works.
(7.5/10 Andrew Doherty)
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