UMUR
The Crawling Chaos is the debut full-length studio album by German thrash metal act Noneuclid. The album was released in January 2008 by Merciless Records. The lineup features members and ex-members of acts such as Dark Fortress, Obscura, Triptykon, Celtic Frost and Daylight Misery.
The music on the album is not straight thrash metal. Rather there are a lot of progressive elements on the album and some industrial tendencies too. The atmosphere in the music is dark and reeks of despair. I get a kind of post-war sci-fi vibe when listening to the album. Lead vocalist Bruce is skilled and he understands how to vary his vocal delivery for maximum impact. He can both sing clean type vocals and deliver more raw sounding vocals too. One of the greatest things about this album is the powerful and generally fast-paced drumming by Seraph. Even during the most progressive clean guitar sections he whips up a storm with his fast-paced drumming. The busy bass playing by Linus Klausenitzer is definitely worth a mention too. There are a lot going on in those basslines.
The production is excellent and really enhances the listening experience.
There are only 7 tracks on the album but about half of them exceed the 6 minute mark so the album ends up with a total playing time of 41:57 minutes. The Xenoglossy track is a kind of industrial ambient soundscape type of track though and with only 6 other tracks on the album, it does feel a bit like a waste. I know a track like that is meant to create dark atmosphere but when it goes on for 4:49 minutes my attention wanders. I much prefer tracks like Worm, The Digital Diaspora, Coming in Tongues and Void Bitch ( which are the first 4 tracks on the album). Great material that would fully warrant a 4 star rating. Unfortunately the 3 remaining tracks don´t quite live up to the high standard set by the first 4 tracks, which means that my final rating will be 3.5 stars. Noneuclid should probably be considered a project more than a "real" band and only time will tell if we get to see another release by the band, but The Crawling Chaos has certainly made me interested in any possible future output.