The Crawling - Wolves and the Hideous White

The Crawling

Wolves and the Hideous White

by Liam Easley at 27 December 2018, 12:17 PM

THE CRAWLING is a Doom/Death Metal band from the United Kingdom, and they just released their second full-length. Titled “Wolves and the Hideous White,” the album delivers crushing Doom/Death that is interesting enough to not make me fall asleep, and that’s the goal for me when it comes to this genre. While they stayed true to stereotypical Doom/Death for the most part, THE CRAWLING still like to experiment. There are different types of riffs one wouldn’t expect, especially on “Still No Sun” where there are a lot of interesting ideas including tapping. THE CRAWLING likes to use atmospheric arpeggios in their music, and this can be seen especially on “Wolves and the Hideous White.” It adds an eerie effect to the music that, although it’s nothing new, is nice to have.

The stereotypical Doom/Death is appropriated through their execution. The way THE CRAWLING plays is much more interesting and thought out than most music I hear from modern doom/death acts. It sounds cleaner and includes more diverse riffs. “Drowned in Shallow Water” has a lot of examples of this. This album is also remarkably short for the genre. Usually, bands write long songs and have long albums, but this is a nice 36 minutes in total with tracks around six minutes long each, give or take a few. Being a short album is nice because it makes it more listenable.

“Wolves and the Hideous White” isn’t a bad album. It’s a refreshing addition to modern Doom/Death. While it isn’t a classic or anything grand, it still stands out among its peers because of its unexpected riffs and unique portrayals of doom/death.

Songwriting: 8
Originality: 7
Memorability: 6
Production: 9