Lost

Post rock/black metal band An Autumn for Crippled Children have made quite the mark in the metal underground with their debut album aptly titled Lost. The band adds their own unique twist on the post black explosion of recent times, creating an interesting album full of gorgeous melancholia.

Compared to other post black metal bands, An Autumn for Crippled Children are noticeably less “pretty.” Even though the music itself is quite light and airy, the melodies themselves are much darker than the norm. The guitars carry with it a faint influence of doom metal, allowing for a greater sense of emotional weight to shine through. The overall tempo of the music is quite slow, focusing on a much more grueling doom metal pace than a blistering black metal one. This gives the music a dark and tired air to it, the musicians seem exhausted, and the slow pace of the music captures a wonderfully dark and dismal tone to it.

The vocals are quite distorted and incredibly anguished, sounding like a more tortured Georg Börner. Unfortunately, the album page doesn’t list the lyrics so I am as of now unaware of what he is screaming about. However, I can assume that the lyrics deal with oft covered subjects such as depression and isolation. The album title in particular hints towards the content of the lyrics, the title “Lost” is incredibly well fitting. The music itself carries with a sense of Lost, subdued beauty. Ethereal guitar notes chime out of the thick fog whilst the vocalist screeches out at the listener like some unseen, spiritual entity. All of this comes together to create an aura of mystery and wonder, the overall meaning of Lost is quite ambiguous as a whole, requiring the reader to forge their own meaning through what the music communicates to them. As such, I consider Lost a deeply personal album, as though the listener’s emotions were surgically designed during the creation of this album. Indeed, the music itself is incredibly emotional, the guitar melodies are heart wrenching to say the least and the vocals are certainly passionate and anguished. All of these elements come together to create an atmosphere of loss and mourning as the album title so perfectly represents.

The keyboards are a delightful inclusion to this album, creating soft, melancholic undertones that resonate throughout the thick, misty atmosphere. They never sound cheesy or out of place, instead they exist in perfect symbiosis with the rest of the instrumentation. One point I think is particularly worthy of note is that each instrument can be heard clearly. Unlike many other black metal albums, the bass is largely audible, creating destructive undercurrents to the rest of the music. Thankfully, none of the albums rawness is sacrificed to make room for all the instruments. The guitar tone is suitably misty and distorted, vocals are quite hazy, sounding particularly g rim and vile.

The depressive black metal influence present throughout Lost has more in common with a band such as Lifelover rather than Hypothermia or Trist. There’s a definite depressive rock vibe present throughout Lost, indeed the songs are relatively accessible and lack a lot of the inaccessibility of much of the depressive underground. One way this is not like Lifelover is the vocals, which are fairly one sided throughout. However, I see the vocals as only another instrument within the mix and find their monotonous portrayal of the songs emotionally engaging. Riffing wise, An Autumn for Crippled Children are quite original, there’s a definite post rock influence to some of the leads, whilst at other times a doom influence becomes apparent as well. The guitar lines are well written and diverse, working wonderfully in conjunction with the rest of the music. The guitar tone also helps bring the post rock influence into the forefront, with a tone akin to the British band Fen.

Whilst An Autumn for Crippled Children might (understandably) be written off as another bog standard depressive black metal band, due to their name and the album’s title, An Autumn for Crippled Children isn’t a band that should be judged on aesthetics alone. Although all the visual signs point towards Lost being another generic depressive record, the content of the music is most certainly not the case. With an interesting mix of genres ranging from dreamy shoegaze, crushing doom metal, soothing post rock and desolate black metal, Lost is an unusual and interesting hybrid of many different genres that work wonderfully in harmonic synthesis with one another. Highly recommended.

An Autumn For Crippled Children is a unique band hailing from the Netherlands. Their unusual moniker is derived from an album by an obscure British gothic metal band known as Ebonylake. Despite that, An Autumn For Crippled Children produces depressive suicidal black metal (DSBM), and does that well. The first offering of the trio, 'Lost', is groundbreaking in many ways and an album that I personally enjoy listening to at least once a week.


Lyrics-wise, 'Lost' sticks to what you would expect from a DSBM album: depression, melancholia and then more depression. No surprises there. However, there is a level of abstractness to the lyrics which is rather refreshing. On the other hand, the music on this album is what makes it deserve special attention. There are some unique aspects of An Autumn For Crippled Children's music that sets them apart from other DSBM acts of today. One is the bass. When you put on the album and hear the first bass notes of 'To Set Sails To The End Of The Earth', you know you've found something worth giving a second listen to. Good and innovative bass that talks to you through the track and has its own soul is very rare in this sub-genre these days, and I was nothing short of overjoyed to experience such hauntingly melancholy bass compositions in 'Lost'.


The piano is also used liberally to enhance the feeling of melancholy, and seems to add some, lets say, beauty to the music of the album. Their title track 'An Autumn For Crippled Children' is a good example for this. The piano notes are plucked out in perfect harmony with the rest of the music. Vocals-wise, An Autumn For Crippled Children sticks to basic black metal vocals, with some experimentation included in such tracks as 'Tragedy Bleed All Over The Lost', where the vocals start as a series of hisses. Purely anguished cries are however, for the main part, the staple of this album. Considering that this is depressive suicidal black metal, that's not a bad thing. Guitars on the album largely represent the so-called 'wall-of-sound' effect found in shoegaze/post-rock. However, this is interspersed with bluesy solos and dark acoustic melodies which definitely do justice to the DSBM genre.


All in all, 'Lost' by An Autumn For Crippled Children is definitely worth giving a listen to if you're a fan of DSBM, since it is an album which proves true to the word of its creators (anonymous as they are), and is, at its core, truly experimental.

I randomly fell over this band, and since I've been into dsbm lately I figured I would try it out, the fact that it is labeled experimental also made me more interested.
An Autumn for Crippled Children is a three-piece band from the Netherlands, the members play in other bands, but in this one they keep their identities secret. This release is pretty interesting, it has a rough sound, but still so clear. The vocals are raspy black metal vocals that also manage to express pain, because this is again also a dsbm release.

The music is pretty melancholic with sad guitar melodies and piano parts, the atmosphere here is something for itself, it's a bit rough but still without being it again, it's mostly the guitar sound and vocals that go there. The bass is pretty audible and good while the drumming is decent. The music can be more slow but also switch to faster aggressive parts such as in the song "In Moonlight Blood is Black" and "A Dire Faith" has a touch of slow and hopeless melodies that can definitely affect your mood.

It's a bit hard to put words on this release, if you like an empty dark atmosphere that can be slow and sad but also have faster parts with some cool riffs this album is something you should check out. It's different to many other releases out there and if you are into dsbm you shouldn't miss this one. I like this album very much.

An annoying pet peeve of mine that I’ve never been able to shake off is the fact that the aesthetic touches of a band must appeal to me before I check them out, otherwise it may take a long time before I finally give into peer pressure and listen to a band who doesn’t automatically press my buttons, or deal with my cravings for eye catching aspects. A band with poetic song titles, beautiful artwork and other such elements will almost always be a priority in my eyes, as opposed to a band which doesn’t possess those qualities. When I was initially directed towards Holland’s three piece An Autumn For Crippled Children, I must admit that I discredited and pigeon holed them due to my obsession with ideal aesthetics. Whilst the artwork for this full-length debut, entitled ‘Lost’, is intriguing enough, the band name was off-putting and something I’d consider an odd choice as it is taken from a song by an obscure British gothic band called Ebonylake. According to the musicians themselves, the title “fits” their music and atmosphere well. I suppose I can, in the oddly experimental sections, hear purity being drained away and innocence being left behind for anger, depression and hatred.

I find the keyboards, provided by the bands talisman MXM, are one of the primary aspects that make me feel this way. They come in a standardised piano sound which brushes aside the purity and replaces it with an overwhelming sense of melancholy. Although the keyboards don’t play a pivotal role all the way through this 50 minute plus affair, they are affective when they do come into play and shape the atmosphere well alongside the cleaner guitars, also provided by MXM. I found it strange that the band suggest ‘Lost’ is a combination of second wave black metal influences and old school death/doom sounds because this isn’t what I got out of the experience at all. The bands description deals with the depressive side of the sound first and foremost, but An Autumn For Crippled Children are about so much more than just regulation depressive black metal. In fact, when the elements are taken apart like a car, we can evidently see that the different aspects of the sound function in varied ways and this causes ‘Lost’ to be less than typical the longer it goes on.

For instance, the vocals, though more honest about their black metal roots, do not take too typical a sound on. In some of the songs, like ‘Tragedy Bleed All Over The Lost’, the vocals are introduced in a low, almost barely noticeable hissing fashion, though this doesn’t continue for long. To me, the harsher the vocals become, the more they begin to sound like that of Dave Hunt from the British industrial black metal/grindcore band Anaal Nathrakh. They’re probably not quite as at home with An Autumn For Crippled Children as they are Anaal Nathrakh, given the schizophrenic nature of the latter bands sound, but they do a commendable job alongside the harsher aspects and are thankfully omitted when the cleaner parts come into the picture.. To me, this is an unusual ploy for a band who’re supposedly depressive black metal, though the description does suggest they’re experimental and it is in these small, but noticeable alterations from the standard that the band become more and more challenging. The focus is where it should be -- on song writing, as opposed to an overbearing presence of the guitars. The music is varied, but still manages to sound fluid despite the unusual combinations of influences for this brand of music.

Some might even suggest, in terms of the cleaner guitars and audible bass, that An Autumn For Crippled Children have a slightly post-rockish feel to their sound, though this may be where the old school doom metal vibes come into play with languid build-ups and shimmering guitar effects on songs like ‘A Dire Faith’, which points to bands like Anathema and My Dying Bride as the inspiration behind the doomier atmospherics which are fronted primarily by the soaring guitar melodies and soft keyboard textures. The early 90’s feel is apparent on occasions, though I get the impression the band were more focused on writing cohesive songs, as opposed to relying on memorable riffs whilst neglecting the positive influence the bass, in particular, could have on the atmosphere. During songs like ‘A Dire Faith’, aspects like the bass become more standardised than before, taking on repetitious structures alongside the heavy, bludgeoning guitar distortion, which cuts deep into the brain like razor wire. Repetitious songs aren’t beyond An Autumn For Crippled Children, but they do prefer to mix things up by implementing slower, doomier sections, melodic keyboards and floating ambiance. All in all, I appreciate the fact that the band are attempting something slightly different and although it is largely successful, a tighter ship could still be run and more memorable atmospherics conjured.

This new Dutch act is flaunting quite the moniker, more than a mouthful and yet surprisingly effective at conveying the mood of the music they write. An Autumn for Crippled Children have every intention of assembling their own despair, reaching through this recording and then pinning it all to your back, and to an extent, this debut succeeds in doing so. The only major flaw it needs to contend with is a lack of consistency. Only a few songs deep, I felt like the band had already fired all the shots, and the middle of this recording becomes a mild trial to survive, until a few of the closing tracks offer the hint of salvation.

By now, I'm assuming most fans of depressive black or doom metal are aware of the bands Lifelover and ColdWorld. To my ears, An Autumn for Crippled Children fall into this small category of artists who can somehow enable a musical accessibility alongside the extremity of the vocal presence. Take the driving, shimmering walls of guitar that defined mid-era Katatonia, fuzz out the distortion so that it sounds like a rain of razors seeking a tribute of blood in return for every added melody, and then add the tortured rasping of many in the depressive black genre. Sprinkle with clean pianos and guitars, to create a rising and ebbing tide of sadness which will affect both the contemporary music listener and the dweller on the cold fringe.

For a few tracks, this process works wonderfully. "To Set Sails to the End of the World" is like a breathtaking vista of pain, slowly revealing it to yourself through a crest of harsh, melodic acid and spacious valleys of wailing calms. "Tragedy Bleeds All Over the Lost" is a measured thunder of depression, with finely molded, subtle shifts to the guitar chords and a hypnotic bass line that pops along beneath the despair. But after this point, I feel like the quality drops off. "A Dire Faith", for example, has some nice post-rock segments, but when it picks up to a strangling fuzz crescendo and the vocals begin tearing open the chords, the riff just wasn't so memorable. There is nothing really 'bad' about any of the material, it's just a matter of having 1-2 moments of bliss and then some uninteresting filler. Exceptions would be "Ghost Light", one of the shorter and sweeter moments on the album, with the nearest this band will come to a 'breakdown' around 3:00, with a cool driving pattern over which a solemn melody glistens. The end of the record is also quite solid. I speak of the dour, restfulness of the "Gaping Void of Silence" and the mind stabbing pain of "Never Shall Be Again".

There is certainly room out there for more of these expressive ciphers of sorrow and corrupted melody, but I do feel the songs here are slightly less engrossing than those of a ColdWorld or Lifelover. The atmosphere of An Autumn for Crippled Children is something to behold, and in truth I really like how they produce their sounds. It might feel painful for some, but I think there is an enormous potential, if they could just compose better patterns of chords which can steer the imagination much further than what they've assembled here. Seek this out if you're starved for disaffection, but I have a nagging suspicion we'll be hearing more, and better, from this trio.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com