As a heavy metal fan, Krisiun has always been a quandary for me. You see, I like Krisiun. I like their music. I like the concept behind the band’s music. Until 2009’s The Southern Storm, I never actually liked any of their albums proper. Nevertheless, I’ve always appreciated the band’s existence. Heavy metal needs a band like Krisiun, a band dedicated to playing death metal as if the genre’s artistic palette froze after Covenant was released.
The Southern Storm changed everything. Prior to Storm, a Krisiun song was a rigid and linear series of leads, double bass, blastbeats, and simple riffs performed at inhuman speed. Krisiun was an Arc-Light strike rendered as music.
(For those not in the know, Arc-Light is a form of carpet bombing in which B-52s level a square mile of territory with hundreds of bombs. In an age of delicate precision bombing, Arc-Light is antiquated, crude, and brutal, yet it is undeniably effective. It kills by asphyxiation and shockwaves as much as by explosions or shrapnel. It leaves survivors shocked, terrified, and permanently deafened. Krisiun’s no precision bomb; they aren’t technical death metal. They aren’t crude or antiquated, either, but like an Arc-Light, they’re only as technical as they need to be in order to brutalize. I’ve seen Krisiun live, and believe me, they roll over right over the listener like a wave of bombs.)
Storm slowed things down a bit. It introduced variation. In Krisiun terms, it was a tectonic shift in mentality. The Great Execution continues Storm’s concessions to shifts in tempo, slower speeds, and drum beats that aren’t blastbeats or double bass.
Just listen to the title track. It spends 44 seconds introducing itself before it flattens us. And yet t 1:04, we get a shift in tempo to a slower part, a chance to breathe. Why? It’s certainly not because Krisiun ran out of energy. It’s intentional, and it’s an example of Krisiun’s changing approach to death metal. “Descending Abomination” spends more than two minutes ramping up to Krisiun speed. Two minutes is forever in Krisiun time! The song undergoes three shifts in tempo, a little faster each time, until the blastbeats come in at 2:53. And the grooves! Oh my, the grooves in the drumming . . . who suspected Max Kolesne had this in him? He still drums like The Flash runs, but when did The Flash learn to shake his hips?
Don’t believe me about the slow and relatively gentle beginnings to the songs? I did some (sloppy) listening research. I listened to the albums below to determine how long Krisiun spent playing each song before going into rapid double bass or blastbeats that lasted for more than three seconds (“Arc-Light”). I excluded covers, acoustic/ambient intros, and instrumentals with no drumming. The results are:
Black Force Domain’s nine songs averaged 5.9 seconds of introductory playing before the Arc-Light treatment. The quickest was 0 seconds, the longest, 23 seconds. Although only one song started with instant double bass/blastbeasts, most of the ‘intros’ were rhythm guitar work at the same tempo as the drumming that soon followed. Total introductory time was 53 seconds.
Ageless Venomous‘ eight songs averaged 5.6 seconds of introductory playing time. Laughably or awesomely depending upon one’s viewpoint, fully half the songs started right up with Arc-Light drumming. Total introductory time: 45 seconds. I love this album’s dedication.
AssassiNation’s nine songs averaged 11.6 seconds of introductory playing time. Two songs started with the instant Arc-Light treatment. Total introductory time: 104 seconds.
Southern Storm’s 11 songs averaged a whopping 28.9 seconds of playing before Arc-Light commenced. Remember: Assassination was the album right before Southern Storm, and there was a staggering 249% increase in song introduction length. The longest opening was 131 seconds . . . more than Black Force Domain and Ageless Venomous COMBINED. Three songs had no introduction.
The Great Execution’s 10 songs averaged 42.1 seconds prior to Arc-Light. Just one song had no introduction, and the longest intro was 150 seconds.
If I decided to add up the amount of time spent playing over the top of double bass and blastbeats, I expect that there would be a huge jump between Southern Storm and The Great Execution. That was too much work for me. Nevertheless, songs like “Plague of Lions” and “Descending Abomination” are proof that a band can progress, remain loyal to their original mission statement, and still remain effective. Krisiun have learned, but they can still Arc-Light us. They wouldn’t be Krisiun without that capability.
In the past, I paid little attention to news about Krisiun. I was glad when they released new albums, even though I greeted each album with apathy. That has changed. For the first time ever, I’m excited to see what Krisiun does next.
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HEAR THE GREAT EXECUTION
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Krisiun – “Blood of Lions”
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Krisiun – “Descending Abomination”
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BUY THE GREAT EXECUTION
Amazon (CD)
Amazon (MP3 download)
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I love this review. Arc-Light.All Death metal should be judged relative to the speed at which it achieves Arc-Light.
Krisiun play my favorite kind of death metal, the Jungle Rot/Bolt Thrower style, the pure war style. Can’t wait to hear this baby
Unique review! I like it. Southern Storm is fantastic. I don’t really know their back catalog, but I always kind of had the feeling that I didn’t really need to know it. But I’ll check the newest one out, and also hope to see them live again — I highly recommend catching them live, they really slay, and as just about anyone who sees them live will remark afterward, they are the nicest guys on stage, put out really good vibes before singing about ripping your head off.
Let me whisper this…as much as I like it, their back catalogue gets a bit redundant. Ageless Venomous has screwy production, but I think it’s probably the purest expression of how Krisiun thought and played, pre-Southern Storm.
Great review. I feel the same way about Krisiun. I have utmost respect for their playing style and ability, but the monotony of it makes it hard to listen to for very long. Ageless Venomous is the album I’m most familiar with and again, I fully agree that it has screwy production, but it does seem to embody what Krisiun is all about.
That said, they are amazing musicians. It just seems that they’ve boxed themselves in tight corner of the most extreme of death metal, and after a decade and a half of that… it gets old. Even though I’ve grown tired of listening to their albums, I’ve always thought that it would be AMAZING to see them play live. Maybe it’s just the Ageless Venomous production talking, but they do seem to be one of the tightest bands in death metal.
Glad to hear they’re branching out even if it’s just a little bit. I look forward to hearing this one.
Perhaps they could arc light that tired band logo. Awful.
Truly great review and I really like the Arc-Light and The Flash-learning-to-shake-his-hips-while-running metaphors – very much in the Cosmo style (I remember him pointing out that Immolation crush mountains one boulder at a time, which also made perfect sense). I will definitely get this album.
Love this album, it was just a hair shy of making my top 10 list for 2011. I think this renaissance Krisiun is experiencing at this stage in their career is pretty fascinating, I mean, how many death metal bands continue to not only evolve but improve this many albums deep? It’s a testament to their unwavering dedication to the craft.
I’ve been getting into this one slowly. At first the production sounded too soft — warm around the edges, not enough attack — but with time the strength of the songwriting has won me over. Southern Storm fucking rules, too, except for the awkward Sep cover.
Regarding the production, did you read our interview with the band? The recording was done in analog. I wonder how much it cost, but I love the results.
Yeah, I read that. I’m firmly of the opinion that if something works, fucking use it, and that goes for analog or digital. In this case I still don’t love the production after repeated listens, but the drumming in particular really raises the album out of the water.
Analog is one of those things that gets overhyped, in my opinion. I’ve tracked through a MCI JH-16 2″ machine (I had to look that up, I’m not actually that much of a nerd, but almost) and it did sound good… but not appreciably better than using a decent preamp and running straight into protools. In general I’m not a fan of the high end roll-off that’s inherent with analog. It’s easy enough to replicate after the fact if you really want the sound, and stopping and rewinding all the time is a fucking pain. If you really want that sound you can have it mastered down to tape after the fact anyway. I know the new Yob record and the last Agalloch were supposedly done all analog, and personally I think they both sound like shit. (The Yob record still rules, Agalloch just isn’t for me). As long as you don’t overdo it with heavy editing and obviously shitty digital production, I think there’s no reason not to stick with protools.
Finally…praise this album is worthy of!!! Hands down DM album of the year….no question for me!
In this day and age its so refreshing to see one of the old guard just absolutely smash the competition!
The bad memories of this years horror stories can be forgotten about! At least one of the old school bands knows how to create something fresh but not forsake their fanbase/dignity!