Craft – Fuck the Universe
If I reviewed this album immediately upon recieving it, it would have easily been a glowing write up once again praising Sweden’s Craft for their unbending dedication to underground black metal and sonic suffering. However, the more I’ve spun “Fuck the Universe”, the more I have realized that the overall sound and delivery of the band in this case, is a lot more impressive than the actual music. I really like the spirit and mid-paced push of the first half of this album, for songs like the awesome title track and the sludged out groove found in “Demonspeed” pile on the contempt for life when mixed with the excellently razorlike vokills and thunderous production for this entire album. This thing sounds like a stoner rock album in the production department with booming drums and a buzzed out guitar tone that mirrors the room sound echoed in the drum kit. But after track 6 (there are 11 songs on this album), I really get the idea that Craft have shot all their more potent ideas on the opening half of this album. Repetition embraces redundancy as uninteresting riffs begin to wear out their welcome and the harsh vocals begin to fall into phrasing patterns that leave little to the imagination. Aside from this, another positive side to “Fuck the Universe” is that Craft have moved away from the total Darkthrone worship that permiated from “Terror Propaganda”. Even though I liked that album much better, it’s good to hear Craft ending their recording career with more of a sound that they prospected themselves. I still pop this in on occasion and do enjoy it, but there is no doubt that the overall songwriting this time around wasn’t as exciting as the band tried to focus on more simplistic, though maybe strange guitar lines that typically end a normal measure of standard power chord riff ideas, with a high strung and dissonant sounding note fill. This in itself becomes a repeated formula and detracts from the overall excitement of the album. Once again…. amazing sounding album from a band that had a good run of it. “Fuck the Universe” certainly isn’t without merit or interest… I guess I was just hoping for a sterner thrashing or even a more uglified glimpse into the suicidal vision previously displayed by this band. -Marty
SOUTHERN LORD/CARNAL RECORDS
Worm Gear 