Lista de los grupos Doom Black An Autumn For Crippled Children Everything

Carrying on with their particular brand of experimental, post rock inspired black metal, the follow up to Lost, titled Everything shows the band continuing what it does best. Whilst it doesn’t reach the same heights of the debut, Everything once again shows that An Autumn for Crippled Children are a very capable band and one certainly worthy of keeping eye on.

Compared to Lost, Everything has a more post rock inspired approach this time. The overall tone of the album is much calmer and more serene. Therefore, it lacks some of the wonderful atmosphere of Lost, yet makes up for it with its calmer, more introspective approach. The song writing feels to have matured somewhat from Lost, there’s a more progressive edge to their songs this time around, and the post rock and shoegazing elements are handled with greater care. This is indeed more melodically inclined than Lost, with songs having a greater sense of beauty. The cover art depicts this change in aesthetics quite well, far removed from the decaying scene of abandonment that adorned the front of Lost; Everything depicts birds flying within a sky of pure white. It’s an interesting cover and one that depicts the music contained within incredibly well.

Everything has a much brighter style of black metal and can hardly be called depressive anymore. Instead, it’s pushed further towards a much more atmospheric form, or blackgaze as the buzz word of today goes. Personally, I preferred the depressing edge of Lost, but Everything is still a good release. Even without the cold, almost crippling atmosphere of Lost, Everything still manages to convey a powerful and at times even bleak atmosphere. The clean guitar breaks in particular are quite bleak and empty, even with the stronger sense of melody. They contrast well with the beautiful, flowing guitar lines and add a much needed sense of darkness and density. Vocals are keeping in the same style as Lost and, unfortunately, don’t mix as well as they should with the music, which is undeniably quite upbeat. The bass is much stronger on Everything, making greater use of more interesting dynamics to compliment the more flowing nature of the songs.

An Autumn for Crippled Children are masters of textured melody, with each songs containing gorgeous riffs, powerful bass lines and an emotive atmospheres. The guitar tone is more or less in the same vain as the predecessor and composition wise they’re similar as well. The guitars still play repetitive, trance inducing melodies, yet the way they are handled differs greatly. There’s more post rock inspired leads this time around, clean guitar breaks are more frequent and overall Everything is more upbeat and brighter. Unfortunately this does sacrifice some of the atmosphere for a more accessible delivery. Even so, the melancholic sadness is stronger this time round, with some of the melodies being particularly emotive. The overall tone isn’t as dark, not at all, but the way in which the levels of melancholia and sadness are handled with has improved.

So whilst I am disappointed in the more accessible nature of Everything, I still enjoy it. Sure it doesn’t reach the same levels as Lost and some of the sections feel quite drawn out, but there’s still a lot to enjoy within here. The post rock sections are very well written and enjoyable and they mix harmoniously with the black metal sections, and although the atmosphere isn’t as dark as I would have liked, it’s still effective. Overall I enjoyed Everything, it doesn’t strike me on the same level as Lost though, but it’s still a good addition to what hopefully will be a fantastic discography.