Metal Storm logo
Wrathage - Crawlspace Antipathy review




Bandcamp music player
Reviewer:
7.2

1 user:
7
Band: Wrathage
Album: Crawlspace Antipathy
Release date: February 2008


01. ic Sunt Diabolos (There Are Devils Here)
02. The Mercury Insolence
03. Black Movement Conspiracy
04. The Abscess
05. As Night Falls
06. Through The Halls Of Eternity [Immortal cover]

Little did I know about the Finnish Black Metal band Wrathage, before receiving their "Crawlspace Antipathy" ep. Nothing, actually. Google tells us that they have been around as early as '97, and although they have not come around to releasing a full-length, they have put out two DVD's already. I guess everything is possible with the internet, nowadays.

Upon gazing at the tracklist, and noticing that they covered an Immortal song, my heart started pounding for a good dosage of old-school frosted hymns to the blashyrk mighty ravendark. Boy was I wrong. While Wrathage are obviously Black Metal, they have a really brutal sound and have more akin to post-2000 Black Metal than to the early Second wave.

In their wildest moments they sound like a cross between Diapsiquir and Anaal Nathrakh, but then on a whole lot of tranquilizers, as they don't really manage to reach the annihilating, maddening sound of these two bands. But they try, and sometimes, they come quite close. When the high-pitched, agressively squeeling riffs tumble over in a small riffstorm and the various types of vocals, screamed, pained, clean and operatic try to outdo each other in a polyphonous cacophony, the result is quite overwhelming.

Then why did I not rate this any higher? Why am I not completely impressed? My problem is that with bands such as Anaal Nathrakh, Wrathage sound relatively sane. And for the record, that is not good. In my opinion, it would have been better if they would have stepped on the speed-pedal a bit more often. Really throw things overboard, and get lost in a maelstrom insane riffs and vocals. But alas, we'll have to settle with only a half-crazy record, which is good nonetheless.


Rating breakdown
Performance: 7
Songwriting: 7
Originality: 6
Production: 7





Written on 26.05.2008 by If you're interested in extreme, often emotional and underground music, check out my reviews. I retired from reviewing, but I really used to be into that stuff.



Hits total: 1904 | This month: 5