A concise but extremely accomplished dose of metallic mathiness from a band who are seemingly intent on dragging listeners back to the breakout days of Converge, Botch and The Dillinger Escape Plan. Scrunched up riffs, tinfoil-chewing skreeeeees and unexpected tempo changes are topped by a singer who seems to be gargling a mouthful of bees. Like me you’ve probably heard a bunch of stuff like this over the years, but Crowquill succeed where many others fail by remembering what made this style so exciting in the first place: they know that tech wizardry alone isn’t enough to capture interest, and that the smartarse musicianship needs to be delivered alongside a sense of gut-punch physicality and careening, out-of-control dynamism. There’s a lot going on in not much time, and all of it rips – colour me impressed (as well as blood red).
