FERAL / CRAWL - Made As Those Who Are No Longer Alive split EP
Transcending Obscurity Records
This will probably be my favorite split release of the year. Now for those of you who scoff at the idea of split releases let me explain something to ya. I use to have more split releases on vinyl and cassette then you probably have in your music collection. Decades ago it was the thing for a up and coming band to hit up a popular act and do a split release with em. Of course it became a joke.
I believe it was ANAL CUNT who came out with the song "No I Won't do a Split with You". And that was the problem. Be that as it may the cool thing with a split release is that you buy it for the band you know. And hopefully the other band is cool as well. Which here seems to be the case with FERAL and CRAWL.
First off FERAL and CRAWL are both Swedish death metal bands. FERAL is a five piece act who started out in 2007. They were part of that whole old school Swedish death metal revival back then. I have their Welcome to the Graveyard demo from 2009. (I have quite a few band demos from that whole DM revival) But unfortunately I never followed up afterwards. Since then of course they've released three full lengths and a handful of short form releases.
As far as CRAWL goes they're a four piece act who burst onto the scene in 2014. The band is made up of scene veterans from such acts as DEMONICAL who I know well. A couple of others are DECOMPOSED and DISCARNATE. Just to add more familiarity to the story. I reviewed CRAWL's debut full length, Rituals, from 2018 and yeah it's good.
So with all of the preview info it's time for some musical expectations. Well both of these acts have an affinity to one of their Swedish death metal peers and the Boss HM pedal. The band I'm talking about is DISMEMBER and their first two amazing as well as classic albums. Both of these bands contribute two songs each which simply bleed DISMEMBER worship in their own ways.
FERAL stick to the tradition but give the sound a slight modern touch. CRAWL on the other hand stick with what they were doing on their debut album. Which was adding a touch of hardcore flair much in the same vein as DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN or DISFEAR.
As always when it comes to split releases I look at em like a wrestling match. In this case FERAL wins out but hey CRAWL is just as good. And like I stated earlier it's split releases where a fan can get into two bands at once and afterwards let the collecting start. So here ya have two great bands with back catalogs worthy of your support.
LISTEN HERE:
https://feralsweden.bandcamp.com/album/made-as-those-who-are-no-longer-alive-split
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