CRANEIUM are a Finnish band from Turku, Finland, formed in 2011, playing around in the stoner/grunge/doom metal genres. "Explore The Void" is their first full album, respectively their 4^th release: one EP, one single and one... split (coincidentally, the song on the split was also released as their single). I specified, "playing around" because I cannot really believe that they have found their sound yet. There is some potential in there, I must admit it, but after listening to this album, I must say... they should keep searching for it.

Although not a huge fan of the stoner/grunge genres, I can usually be objective enough to notice when something is good even though outside my own tastes. In this case, unfortunately, I was bored to tears and mindfucked in the same time: instrumental was generally very slow paced, very simple, lacking complexity and diversity, and the lyrics made no sense to a logical person. Lyrics wise, this album has one of the fewest lyrics per song of all albums I've listened to in the recent years. 40-80words per song, making a full song contain the lyrics of an intro for most other bands. Just to make things more interesting, in case the repetitive, uninspired instrumentals were not enough.

One song caught my attention before listening to it: "Tsar Bomba". The name was taken from the Russian nuclear bomb, the most powerful one ever created. Such a terrible device, that after testing it, the Russian scientists decided to burn all research and data regarding it, since it was just...too much.My mind was already thinking of what a thrash or a death metal band could make out of that idea, gave me chills, and I couldn't wait to hear it out. As I got to the song, I endured 7 minutes and 44 seconds of slow and repeating guitars, containing an amazing 38 words slooooowly spoken into the microphone, and almost fell asleep. Such a waste of potential...could not find a single song on the whole album to declare as favorite...I must admit I have listened to this album while being completely awake, fully functional and sober. Probably the fans of the genre will find it much more enjoyable, but in my case, unfortunately, it was not the case.

What kind of drugs does it take to enjoy this, I've no idea, but I've seen more complexity in a couch from ikea...but hey, my whole review contains very close to the same number of words as the whole album (or almost 2 songs by IRON MAIDEN).