Sweden seems to hold a firm grip on June 2018 with new releases by Black Metal stalwarts MARDUK and now, from chroniclers of the bleak, CRAFT.  CRAFT have been a band shrouded in legend and secrecy since forming in 1998.  Proud purveyors of malignancy, the band manages to capture the sound of the Black Metal message perfectly.  While not as technically proficient as fellow Swedes and left-hand disciples, DISSECTION, the band performs a type of Black Metal that owes more to the sheer tenacity and dirty angst of early BURZUM and DARKTHRONE than the technical prowess of EMPEROR or even IMMORTAL.

The first track, "Cosmic Sphere Falls," is constructed primarily of disparate riffs that are juxtaposed to deliver more or less a feeling of disconcerting regarding the cosmos.  It's mostly a mid-paced venture that plods along hammering away with its misanthropy.  "Again," the second track, is built around a syncopated rhythmic idea that frames what largely resembles the more traditional idea of a song.  It's the feeling of unrest conveyed by the adorning guitar lines that retains the band's ethos.

Propagated by a massive Black 'N Roll riff, track five, "Darkness Falls," is perfect for inciting cold and cruel, "trve" pits of flailing limbs and giving valid homage to both DARKTHRONE and later SATYRICON.  The final track, "White Noise," features a SLAYER-like brutal down-picked Thrash riff that forms the basis of the song.  Like the previous tracks, though, it is the meanderings of extra guitar tracks that provide the void from which the atmosphere is conjured.  This is practically the strongest track on the album, though, in its direct fist-pumping delivery.  As the track fades to black, one feels the warmth of humanity re-enter the room with decidedly more oxygen.

At times, the rhythm-keeping percussion seems to be adrift in the blackened cosmos.  There's quite a lot of tom work, but the bass drum does not have a very strong presence unfortunately, by and large.  The bass has some interesting counter-melodic runs in the fourth track, "Tragedy of Pointless Games."  It is up front in the mix and provides a solid bed rock over which the other strings and vocals are stacked.  This is Black Metal for guitar players 101.  The riffs range the gamut from MAYHEM to BEHEXEN to simply as minor and dissonant as possible while still "working".  Melody is a lonely, used concept, but its rays do shine through some of the holes of white noise.

This is decidedly the most riff-centric release from the band.  A solid production enables the band to cleanly portray their shared vision for "White Noise and Black Metal".  This is no "Fuck the Universe" sequel, but CRAFT have not totally derailed the Black Metal train so as to alienate their devoted hordes.  The point is that the feeling is there despite the fact the music seems a bit on the experimental side.  It does come across as a logical progression when listening beside the band's discography.  While not album of the year, this is a solid release that further propels the maligned forces of CRAFT further in their cosmic trajectory toward undoing and unraveling creation.