First, with all due respect to the bands I'm covering and my audience, this particular weekend please accept my sincere apologies because I'm coming into this regular assignment distracted.  Perhaps if I just vent briefly, I'll be able to rightly move onto the subject at hand.

The new DARKTHRONE.  The dynamic duo of True Norwegian Black Metal released a streaming version of a new track, "The Hardship of the Scots," from the forthcoming LP, "Old Star".  Evidently promos were not sent out to press and such as usual and expected, and both sides can be argued.  Regardless, as a musician, but even more as a fan, it is never a bad thing to wake up one day and find out there is a brand new DARKTHRONE song.

DARKTHRONE is a proper background reference for this band, KRYPTS.  They are both obvious fans of CELTIC FROST and CANDLEMASS, two of the best, most evil bands ever.  I'm on board already.  KRYTPS, whose third full-length titled "Cadaver Circulation" comes out at the end of May, know how to create a mammoth-sized unrelenting vie that permeates through it all.  The production sounds a bit like something Fenriz would approve of.  The point is:  KRYPTS is a legit, True Northern Death/Doom band that manipulates the music to taste creating a wicked brew of razor-sharp melody dripping with copious melancholy.

I could not help but think of HOODED MENACE after a while, though the two bands are quite different.  Sure enough, Otso Ukkonen, the drummer, played in HOODED MENACE.  The guitarist, J. Lilja, is also in DEVOURING STAR, a Black Metal band also on Dark Descent Records.  It is a pleasure to witness such a small, tight-knit community of True Metal folks yield so very many good musical projects!

Alas, my bias is in no way bluffed.  From the get-go, this album is sick starting with "Sinking Transient Waters".  The album flows on with tons of great changes and crushing rhythms.  The middle, specifically the third and fourth tracks, "Echoes Emanate Forms" and "Mycelium" respectfully, are like a tag-team dual knock-out beatdown.  It is as if the uniquely diabolic dissonant and minor chords being used are applied to a style that when getting really heavy evokes classic ENTOMBED and CROWBAR.  Those are big words, but it is true.  This album is oppressively heavy.  It is like a sonic assault.  The final two songs, "Vanishing" and "Circling the Between" respectfully, show a different side of the band.  It is as if the setting is suddenly shifted to a forest in the middle of the night, sharing a torch with others, cold, lost, and very, very cold.  Without notice, the band leaps into sporadic Black Metal moments, blasting away yet in their way.

This brings the discussion to the next essential topic in regard to this album:  tone.  The guitars are evenly terrorizing yet they have a tone that is pure:  humbuckers through overdrive pedals into tube heads.  The tone itself is heavy in the bass accentuating those low notes favored by the guitarists by focusing on their articulation.  It certainly isn't strange, alien-left-brain tech stuff, but this is impressive, emotionally hard-hitting and exploratorily expressive.  The way this band leaps out to me sonically, I can immediately hear one guitar playing a mix of chords with a touch of palm muting and another guy doing tremolo picking throughout.  The way they blended the two on the recording captured the purity and sincere integrity of this band.  This is what I want Death/Doom to sound like.  Here is yet another album that is getting to make it on my yearly favorites list.