Where Lost Hope Dies

If you know one track of Kraft, I can assure you that you have heard all of them. Yes, indeed it is this bad. Always the same ingredients, the same arrangements, the same style, the same drum-computer-programming, the same annoying vocals, the same guitar sound and so on and so forth; the list is as long as elements were used to create music. The most astounding aspect of the whole demo is that the average of the song-length is actually over (!) 10 minutes. An endless time, in which the band is tormenting the listener endlessly with the utmost monotonic and pain inflicting music, without ever offering some kind of relieve.

Yet (!) the band is actually capable of creating some nice atmosphere and do play nice riffs now and then. Nevertheless their appearance is too scarcely and the whole concept sometimes too chaotic to justify any praising of their musicianship in terms of a review. There are worse bands of course, but some kind of consistency is not really apparent on this record. While the drum computer is playing merciless and constantly uptempo blast beats, the guitars offer slowly played riffs as a contradicting element; well this is how I interpret this. This combination works on several occasions, but rather as an exception and not as a rule. Drums and guitars form therefore not a unity in which they do support each other, but are actually doing the contrary; whereby one instruments challenges the other one for attention. THIS is not limited to one segment in a song or a segment, but rather something like a general rule, a red line, which can be examined over the whole length of the record.

It is impossible to find proper words for the songs and how they were written, simply because they are much too long and vary too much over their whole length. There is no such thing as a consistent and easy to remember riff-structure which would remind the listener on the track he is currently listening to; despite the aforementioned general characteristics of the music, there is not such thing as catchiness, but rather some typical kind of ‘luring rhythm’ prevalent. If someone knows Xasthur and is a hard enthusiast of Malefic’s releases, the chances are pretty good that this person might also enjoy Kraft from Portugal. The extraordinary degree of distortion of the vocals adds a metallic sound to the songs, like it is apparent on some releases of Xasthur’s releases. Kraft’s music though suffers from the use of this stylistic element because they overstretch the boundaries of the endurable way too much.

Even though “Where Lost Hope Dies“ is not their first record, by counting the demos and albums together it be their sixth release, the sound still needs a good deal of improvement. With instruments neatly sorted in a order, but without anything playing on the same ‘noise’ level, some elements can only be discovered by listening to it intensively; perhaps by turning up the volume, whereby some damage to the ear and maybe also to the brain can hardly be prevented.

Why do I give 40 points? Well… sometimes I just want to listen to the sound of this band… not because I would be fascinated by their musicianship, by their creations and the songs, but rather because it is making me drowsy… the music is like a soporific.

An endlessly tormenting monotony is awaiting the listener on this record. 40 points not more. End of story…