ninehertz

Moment of Collapse are a cool label, prospectors that finds nuggets of gold like this but for the benefit of all. Cranial are by no means new – we reviewed their Dark Towers / Bright Lights album way back in 2017 – but it’s been a while since their last release, pre-Covid, so welcome not only their return but the label’s work in helping it to be seen.

Cranial are a post-metal force – not simply playing it by the book as the genre can often lapse into, adapting the sound with their own dynamics and an ever present weightiness. There are four tracks here, all long affairs so the album stretches beyond 45 minutes.

The first, Guidelines, showcases what Cranial do so well – a cool mixture of weighty doom and brooding post-metal, it’s like early Cult of Luna mixed with heavier-end of the prime-era of the HydraHead roster (Keelhual, Knut etc). The repeating guitars provide the foundations for a steadily building wall of noise atop, the eleven minutes afforded allowing it room to develop in interesting ways.

They nail the requisite world building approach, in the patience applied on the title track, a steadily growing influx of intent, itself increasingly vitriolic, vocals bellowing the louder it gets. This is post-metal of its early days. Funnily enough it is on the least interesting – and longest – track which shows why Cranial otherwise have an angle to work within post-metal that allows them to stand out – Into the Abyss, despite some Amenra comparisons coming to mind early on is a little plain and by the numbers, everything they usually aren’t.

It ends well with The Beauty in Aggression, shunted forth by the vocals, and a full, rounded sound that allows room for the emotive and forceful to shape the brewing storm. This is the craft of Cranial, a reminder that the aim of post-metal should never be formulaic, that it can be ferocious, adventurous and emotional.