AN AUTUMN FOR CRIPPLED CHILDREN — Only the Ocean Knows (review)

AN AUTUMN FOR CRIPPLED CHILDREN — Only the Ocean Knows album cover Album · 2012 · Atmospheric Black Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
Time Signature
Past tense...

Genre: some sort of post-metal thing

Imagine U2 and Mew in a jam session attempting to play gothic doom metal after having listened to Burzum and Drudkh non-stop for a year.. yes, hard to imaging, but if that scenario was ever to happen then the outcome might be something along the lines of An Autumn for Crippled Children's third album "Only the Ocean Knows".

Drawing on the dark atmosphere of melancholic black metal, An autumn for Crippled Children's framework on this album is atmospheric and depressive black metal with a lot of ambiance (which is in part generated by the music itself, in part by the use of atmospheric synths, and in part by the production). Already this aspect of the music on this album is interesting, especially if one likes harsh vocals panned out and saturated with reverb to make them more atmospheric than prominent (an old trick used in both funeral doom and depressive black metal).

Apparently not satisfied with the limits of depressive black metal, An Autumn for Crippled Children inject more than a bucketful of alternative rock into their style. A salient feature here is the drive of the warm pumping bass associated with U2 (back in the 80s when U2 were more interesting than they are today) and drum beats that seem to avoid blastbeats altogether, but instead focus on syncopation and accents.

So we have black metal and alternative rock combined. This may already be too much for some to take in, but there is one last component to the rather unique sound on this album. The keyboards are not just used for atmosphere, they also feature prominently in generating a melodic side to the music on this album in the form of piano effects and string effects. This gives the texture of the music a dimension of lushness and, at times, an almost symphonic feel. A result of this is that there is that there is a type of gothic aspect to the music as well not unlike what you hear in gothic doom metal.

This is perhaps a volatile mixture, but in the hands of An Autumn for Crippled Children, it works, and fans of dark atmospheric and depressive music - be it depressive black metal, funeral doom, melancholic alternative rock or whatever - should definitely give this album a listen.
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