Craving – By The Storm

[schema type=”review” name=”Craving – By The Storm” description=”Label: Apostasy Records” author=”Basak Günel” pubdate=”2016-12-16″ ]

Craving is a death metal band from Germany. Founded as Erebos in 2005, the band went through several line-up changes and played over 100 live gigs in Germany and several other countries. The band’s sound is a mixture of folk/death metal with some black metal influences; their inspiration comes from history and nature as well as movies and novels.

After having released their latest EP early this year, the band is back with the third full-length album “By The Storm”.

Having known the band’s sound for a while, I was quite satisfied (but not fully amazed) by their latest EP “Wielder of Storms” so when I got the promo of this album, I was quite curious. Would the band repeat themselves or experiment a bit with their sound?…

From the first spin, we get to hear the typical Craving sound that we know; blasting & powerful beats, “death/pagan” metal vocals and the melodic riffs. This aspect makes the band quite interesting in general; if you are especially new to Craving’s sound, you will notice that they cannot be strictly categorized to one genre and this is even clearer with this record. There’s a fine mixture of death/pagan/folk metal which forms the essence of the band’s sound. So the Craving fans will definitely like the record from the beginning of the end whereas the ones who are new to the band’s sound will be impressed by how well the band manages to deliver a variety of genres.

If you spin the record a few times, you will realize that the band decided to experiment a bit and create a diversity within the boundaries of their sound. This aspect makes the record different from the previous releases. This time, I also got the feeling that the record is more natural and ‘atmospheric’; not in the sense that it’s slow but the songs sound more natural and you can clearly see how much the band has evolved. I think that the previous releases of the band were more straightforward and a “punch-in-the-face” whereas “By The Storm” is quite versatile and it will take a while for the record to kick in.

After spinning the record a few times, some songs stood out more than the others. My personal favorite is “Cave of A Dream”; I just love the combination of the clean/harsh vocals and the overall atmosphere in the song. The riffs especially add that ‘technical’ but ‘melodic’ vibe to the record. Apart from this, one highlight I really enjoyed was the use of clean choirs in songs like “Penelope’s Prayer” and “Eyes of Winter”. Surely, the clean choirs are a part of the band’s sound but this time they sounded even more bombastic and fit into this diverse sound in the album really well. Although the ‘clean vocals’ need to be improved soundwise and productionwise, it forms the main highlight of the record for me. The most ‘brutal’ song on the other hand is “Spirits of the Dead”, which shows the harsher side of the record and even features ‘black metal’ riffs… That’s not it though! The band also surprised the fans and added their own interpretation of “Game of Thrones” original soundtrack, which is available only in the digipak format. I was quite surprised and impressed when I listened to the song so I am sure it will definitely entertain the Game of Thrones fans!

One thing I would maybe criticize is the length of the record. Since some songs stand out more than the others, the listener might have a hard time spinning the record from the beginning to the end or lose interest after a certain point. Surely, this is not a concept album but this might be an aspect that the band can work on in the future to broaden their audience and catch the attention easily. Furthermore, if you have listened to the latest EP before, the songs “Wenn der Wind sich dreht” and “Wielder of Storms” will be like a repetition since they were already included in the EP so for this album, I think that 10 songs would have been enough.

“By The Storm” is definitely a fresh air for the band as well as for the fans. I always appreciate diversity and the mixture of different genres in a record and this is exactly what Craving has for us! Get ready to be taken by the storm!

Line-up:
Ivan Chertov – vocals, guitar
Wanja Gröger – drums
Leonid Rubinstein – bass

Tracklist: 01. Fulgur Immortale 02. By Storm 03. Cave Of A Dream 04. Penelope’s Prayer 05. Spirits Of The Dead 06. Seven Steps To Darkness 07. One With Darkness 08. Eyes Of Winter 09. The Stone 10. Wenn der Wind sich dreht 11. Wielder Of Storms 12. The Fountain Of Memory 13. Game Of Thrones (Cover)* 14. Torn Apart* * bonus tracks (digipak only)

Links:
Craving Facebook
Craving Official