An Autumn For Crippled Children Deliver Stirringly Majestic Post-Black Metal On New LP

The Dutch black metal group An Autumn For Crippled Children have captured a work of stunning beauty on their new album All Fell Silent, Everything Went Quiet. The kind of beauty that the band have encapsulated is that which reaches deep into the soul, and even though the process may be painful, there’s a deeply stirring feeling of finding some place of shimmering majesty at the conclusion of the journey. The brightness of that metaphorical prospect shines across the whole album, which presents contemplative, shoegaze-y melodies with the ferocious force of raw black metal.

The album contains the beauty of emotional release in the sense of a palpable catharsis. There’s not necessarily a promise that all the pain will disappear through the course of the new record’s sonic journey, but the songs provide a refreshingly honest assessment.

Traversing through the band’s striking emotional journey, An Autumn For Crippled Children have crafted a truly lush soundscape, combining emotionally rich electronica with more traditional instrumentation. Although the band stay far away from an overabundance of elements like blast beats, the prominent, poignant melodies that define this album have a real tension to them. They’re frequently very intricate and quickly swirling amidst the tumult of the immersive, frequently grating textures.

The album feels defined by its intensely compelling, harshly howled melodies. The crescendos, by points like track four, deliver a sense of triumph, which feels startling considering the harshness of the overall sonic environment, whose thickness really can not be overstated. The whole piece feels like a somber howl ringing out from a lone figure.

On their new album, the group occasionally works with strikingly softer melodies in moments in which the rawness of the accompanying surges of black metal feedback and howling vocals fade away. Softer melody-oriented components emerge at moments like the track “Water’s Edge” and the latter moments of “The Failing Senses.” No matter whether or not they’re accompanied by the beastly black metal tones, the melodies themselves, which frequently repeat in service of quite beautiful crescendos, feel startlingly catchy, interestingly enough, as though amidst the coarse, howling music, the group has truly unearthed a shining gem that lingers.

5/5 Stars

Check out the music below! It’s available via Prosthetic Records.