Dimensional Bleedthrough

I'll admit it right off-the-bat, there was a part of me that was actually worried going into this. Mick Barr, the vocalist, guitar player, and founder of the group, is also known for his two-man project Orthrelm, which fucking sucks. I mean, it's some of the most technically impressive music that's ever been made, but god damn does it suck regardless.

Thankfully this shows a substantial amount more actual interesting songwriting than Orthrelm ever has. The songs are still highly technical, with an emphasis on polyphonic interplay between the guitars, and very fast, complex, and dizzying tremolo riffs for a significant portion of the 77 minutes this album lasts, but there's also a strong quality of melodicism here. It's a very difficult yet epic sound, something I can personally really appreciate right off the bat. The vocals are buried pretty well into the mix, becoming a part of the atmosphere rather than standing out on their own, and they're similar to the howls that you would get out of a depressive black metal act, although more subdued, perhaps, with a lot of the real anguish that comes with that particular vocal style absent; but this works very well for the abstract lyrics and sound of the music.

I think the thing that impresses me the most here is not only the diversity of the songs themselves, which are sometimes crushingly heavy and other times beautifully uplifting, but the compositional weight of the pieces here is astounding for some of their lengths. For example, track three, "Aridity", is 15 minutes long, but damn if I honestly didn't feel kind of disappointed when it finished. I definitely could have gone at least another five minutes with that song. The 18 minute closing track "Monolith of Possession" might have one minute or two long part that feels like its trying to artificially extend its own length, but the rest of it carries itself impressively well, kind of covering all of the stylistic bases of the tracks before, creating what seems like an extended overture of the album as a whole.

My least favorite track here would have to be the opening track, despite most people touting it as the prime centerpiece of the album. While I like what it does, it feels to me much more aimless and unfocused that anything else here. It doesn't really develop into much of anything beyond a whirlwind of epic, increasingly high-pitch reaching guitar leads...which I suppose the other tracks here kind of do the same thing, more-or-less, but the songs after this one do a much better job of solidifying their ideas into fully realized, structured pieces.

But I hate that I've slept on this band for so long. This is exactly the kind of black metal that I sink my teeth into so well, and it's already leaving a hell of an impression on me, and it's possible that my rating could go up in time...

In recent years USBM has become little more than a joke, but with bands like Krallice and Nightbringer on the scene we can safely sleep at night knowing there are bands out there who can set the childish kvlt bullshit aside long enough to produce an album capable of standing alone in its own right rather than leeching of the reputation/infamy of its members. This album opens up with a great track, catchy riffs and great interlocking dynamics that twist and tie themselves around the whirling thunder of the rhythm section. The song may be long but it manages to keep you interested with wonderful dynamic songwriting and a controlled air of technicality. While many folks will complain about the bass being to forward in the mix, it’s a welcome aesthetic change for a band trying to accomplish something vastly different from your typical lot of pseudo-intellectual occultists.


As the album continues on its path of controlled chaos the songs weave themselves together into a long, single structure with each track accomplishing something that lends to the larger image of the whole records. Thankfully each individual track is an enjoyable listen in and of itself but the entire record still remains an awesome sonic journey. The flow of the record is paced perfectly, each song’s place in the mixture is carefully calculated and executed to a ‘t’; all the way from the powerful vocal-asskicking of the intro of ‘Autochthon’ to the dark majesty of ‘The Mountain’.


What a lot of people seem to overlook is the fact that this album is laden with hooks and things that keep you coming back to it, things that make this album special. Its listenable qualities far exceed releases of its kind in recent years and that is much more important than how ass-backwards and kvlt you can make the production. While Krallice’s approach is anything but orthodox, it’s a unique assault that isn’t afraid to blaze its own trail. A rebel among rebels, the true essence of Avant-Garde. ‘Dimensional Bleedthrough’ is a monolith of progressive metal and a monument of what can be accomplished when you let the music speak for itself.

There's nothing simple about this album. Krallice's self-titled debut displayed the same wildly complicated and enthralling brand of black metal, but the music was driven by more easily digestible post-rock melodies. Dimensional Bleedthrough feeds that staccato guitar wizardry through the obfuscation machine. I feel like I could listen to this thing a thousand times and never comprehend all of its nuances. Is it a good album? I personally think so. My suggested point of reference on Krallice is still Weakling. If you dig an esoteric take on black metal with triumphant overtones and a good bit of melody, then you should be all over this.

The tempo of Dimensional Bleedthrough is generally locked in at just short of ludicrous. You can pretty much distinguish each note; this isn't "wall of guitar" black metal. The guitar work of Mick Barr and Colin Marston is just as mind blowing as it was on the self titled album. Sometimes this thing hits plateaus of deliberate drone, but for the most part, it's two guitars doing battle on planes of existence mortal man can't fathom. How do four men sit down and compose this insanity?

Some of the best moments on the album occur when things slide out of overdrive. "untitled" lets the guitars escape from a rhythm section altogether and makes me think of the frozen tundras on Pelican's The Fire in Our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw. "Autocthon" breaks into a galloping thrash with a melody that's simply incredible.

One improvement over their debut is the bass work of Nick McMaster, who joins in the frenzy on tracks like "Monolith of Possession" to add an extra depth to the music. Lev Weinstein's drums are also more varied. "Aridity" has some positively thunderous drum work. At times the rhythm section seems to phase into a pocket universe to create absurd sensations of movement, like looking out the window of a train while facing the wrong direction.

The sparse vocals duties are shared by Mick Barr and Nick McMaster. I really enjoy the whimsically bizarre and frequently poetic lyrics. Neither man sports a particularly original black metal scream, but they're both able to get the job done in a satisfying manner.

Dimensional Bleedthrough is a complicated album that reveals its glory through repeated listens and a certain amount of attention. The melodies are both savory and sweet, giving the album an emotional foothold. Each song is held together by a thematic gravity that prevents these four musicians from flying out of orbit into oblivion. It is a wonder to behold.

originally published here: http://atanamar.blogspot.com/

There aren't too many cases of an album's opening track being the most boring, lackluster, least-representational song on the entire disc but that's absolutely the case with Krallice's second album, Dimensional Bleedthrough. On their self-titled debut, the focus was on guitarsts Colin Marston and Mick Barr, both noted for their extreme technicality and avant-garde playing styles. Strangely, the pair was able to convert Barr's tendency to do nothing but play ridiculously fast ice-pick tremolo riffs that do nothing but induce headaches on his other releases (I mean, have you heard that Orthrelm album?) into something that could actually pass as interesting, progressive black metal. Over the course of that album's hour long running time, however, the style simply grew weary, with more straightforward parts, such as the stomping thrash riff at the end of "Timehusk", being welcome relief from the nonstop upper-register guitar attack. The general approach was a solid one, though, and I felt that with a better developed sense of songwriting Krallice would be able to develop into a band that was actually enjoyable rather than just an interesting curiosity.

Which brings us to the baffling mixed bag of Dimensional Bleedthrough. I had so much hope for this release bringing strong riffing to the table, but the opening title track is essentially everything that I didn't like about the first album turned up to eleven. The treble is even more pronounced and the riffs reek even more of the sort of power-drill-to-the-temple repetition of Barr's other projects. The opening riff, for example, literally sounds like the CD is skipping. If I wasn't already familiar with the guitarists, I might have actually checked to see if this was the case. There's one memorable riff in the song, somewhere, but just now I spent three or four minutes skipping throughout the song to find it and couldn't. It's that fleeting and the unrelenting, squealing tremolo picking I encountered at every single place where I thought the riff might have been just drained my will to even care.

Then, right as you breathe a sigh of relief when the ten minutes of 200 bpm nails on a chalkboard finally subsides, something strange happens: Krallice change gears and kick into a song with actual riffs! Yes, there are still 20-somethingth fret tremolo workouts all over "Autochthon" (and the rest of the album, for that matter) but they're usually supported by real, honest to god riffs from the left speaker. The more structured approach taken by the left-channel guitar has the effect of forcing those signature Krallice tremolo lines into some sort of melodic structure which does wonders in bringing them down to Earth into the realm of listenability. This is especially noticeable during the slower bits but even during the blastbeat workouts the tremolo coming out of the right-hand speaker (that's GOTTA be Barr over there) maintains some level of coherence. Despite the ridiculous technicality of the guitar playing throughout the album, there's nary a solo in sight.

Nick McMaster's basslines are clearly audible throughout the entirety of the album. He tends to just play along with the basic guitar riffs, which are quite spastic, but the added punch gives the riffs the stability they need to anchor the tracks to reality while the lead guitar continues on its album-long massive meth tweak. A little more overdrive on the bass would have furthered the cause even more but it's not really a big deal. There are some parts where McMaster audibly switches to bass chords which really fills in the sound. Watch the low end of your graphic EQ shoot up when he uses those chords at about 3:45 into "Aridity" for an example of this. Those parts sound really nice and could have been used more frequently.

Lev Weinstein's drumming is just as energetic and flashy as it was on the debut but this time around he has the added benefit of production that actually has some bottom end, letting us hear those rapid-fire bass drums and gratuitous tom fills. The cymbals are a bit low in the mix and on the trebly side but aren't too offensive. The faster sections are almost universally accompanied by blast beats which gets a bit monotonous. I would prefer more conservative use of the snare drum, perhaps punctuated with some more fills, than this blastblastblastblast approach. Weinstein has considerable drum chops, as evidenced by the times when he does choose to play a fill, so it's kind of strange that he doesn't use them more often. Regardless, the drumming is one of the most enjoyable parts of the album.

Dimensional Bleedthrough is mostly an instrumental album but when vocals are used, they've got more variety here than on the debut. Instead of just a higher-end hardcore-ish black metal rasp mixed to the back (which was the sole vocal technique on the debut), we've got some lower death growls used in a couple of places to great effect. Both styles fit the music well, but I would have liked to see them switch back and forth more often than simply sticking with one style for the entirety of a song. The most inspired vocal performance is the unhinged fury that gets spouted during the album's shortest (and untitled) track.

The album's biggest flaw is its lack of dynamics and generally poor riffs. I applaud the band's move to a more riff-oriented approach as it's much less grating than nonstop two-guitar tremolo atonal leads, but if the band is going to spend minutes on end jamming on a riff, that riff had better be damned good. They simply go nowhere. During the nearly 15 minutes of "Aridity" I was expecting the low-key lackluster riff to eventually evolve into something really triumphant sounding and memorable. It never does, though. The only payoff in the entire track is the hyperactive tom abuse Weinstein provides near the end of the song. The song also spends well over a minute simply fading out over a single note riff. There's a difference between epic and simply long and boring, folks. This whole analysis can be applied directly to the album as a whole; it fills nearly an entire CD with music (over 77 minutes' worth!) but feels at least twice that length. Long songs that go nowhere really don't leave you hopeful for things like the nearly 19-minute closer. Fortunately, the twin-rusty-door-hinges assault of the title track only returns for brief spurts (the beginnings of "The Mountain" and album closer "Monolith of Possession") so the album tiptoes around active annoyance but seriously drags. My theory is that album lengths should correspond to the tempos at which the music is played; grind albums are extremely short, thrash and death metal albums are a bit longer, and funeral and drone doom albums are longer still. Dimensional Bleedthrough stares this observation and laughs at it, marching on well past an hour with its ridiculous tempos. I would be willing to make an exception to my rule if the music were exceptionally good (in the case of metal, meaning exceptionally good at songwriting, rift-craft or atmosphere) but Krallice largely fail at all three of these. Yes, there are a few quality riffs scattered here and there but none of the songs really flows like it ought to and the album rarely achieves a captivating atmosphere because of its relentless pace and attention-deficit disorder guitar heroics. The few parts where atmosphere really does show up (about halfway through "The Mountain" for example) whatever atmosphere is established fades away as the riffs drone on to nowhere in particular. The album's closing moments, which see the volume rise well above comfortable and the EQ turn into what's essentially a brick with all frequency levels maxed out, seems like a slap in the face to the listener. I can just hear the band saying, "we MEANT this to be unenjoyable."

If Krallice's first album blew your mind, you will very likely not be disappointed by Dimensional Bleedthrough. The riffing style is so unconventional that it's hard to recommend this to black metal fans in general. If you're a fan of really avant-garde, progressive musicianship and in particular appreciate the work of Colin Marston and Mick Barr's other bands, this album will probably appeal to you. Maybe I'm just old fashioned, but if you don't have good songs, good riffs, or an intriguing atmosphere (or better yet some combination of those three) then musicianship alone isn't going to be enough to keep my attention. For the curious, I strongly recommend sampling the band's sound via Myspace or YouTube before committing to a purchase.

For me, this one ranks right alongside a blank tape in terms of listenability, hence the score.