Crows-An-Wra’s debut album is an eclectic, colourful affair. The Cornish quartet builds from a wide range of influences and crashes them together fluently. Fundamentally, the connections to defunct UK screamo bands Ravachol and Crocus (3/4 Ravachol + 1/4 Crocus = Crows-An-Wra) are difficult to ignore. Crows-An-Wra essentially sound like a mix of these bands only with a more vivid sense of melody, but still that doesn’t quite cover it. The way they push vibrant, playful guitar licks to the fore is reminiscent of math-rock bands like Giraffes? Giraffes! or Tera Melos. They also have a frenetic energy and prog-rock spirit that sounds like a punk-rock Mars Volta – no, not At the Drive-In, smart-arse. Meanwhile, they drive forward with the intense focus of bands like Daitro or Raein.
However, to ascribe the album’s merits to other sources feels insultingly cheap. While these influences are notable, the free-flowing sound Crows-An-Wra achieve here is not as laborious as this systematic decoding of their influences makes it sound. Rather, it is a breathless, joyous rush of an album that careens through sections expertly and excitingly.
Perhaps what allows Crows-An-Wra to fuse styles so seamlessly is the seasoned control they play with. Take ‘Perseus’, for example: although soaring guitar lines command attention, a taut drum pattern and moody bass line anchor the piece. Here, the leads cut through the murk like fireworks through night sky. Throughout the album, the vocals – tending to be halfway between a hardcore bark and spoken-word – float slightly above the surface, only occasionally cutting clean through. Elsewhere, ‘Heavy Heads’ offers a brief respite with its warm, gently warbling female vocals over a Spanish guitar piece. It soon tilts methodically into the spiralling riffs of ‘Blossom’. Once again, the rhythm section maintains a cool sense of control, providing an interesting counterpoint to the chaos around it.
‘Kalopsia’ is, therefore, not as messy as Crows-An-Wra’s contemporaries, nor does it have the gut-clenching intensity of other screamo bands. However, it is still exciting. Its eccentric song-structures make for a lively listen, and help the album to retain its freshness after several listens. ‘Vibrant Colours’ continually changes form in an instant, from fluid grooves to jagged, shaky rhythms, from riffs conveying maniacal glee to ethereal, fractured melodies. The album moves at a frenetic pace, but is not rushed. ‘This Will Soon Be Forgotten’ oscillates between staccato-ridden rhythmic stabs and sporadic bursts of euphoria. In this way, tension is rapidly and deliberately created and dissipated. These short, sharp bursts are so often repeated that this giddy joyfulness feels near-constant.
This sense of fun is present across the album. ‘Kalopsia’ is fluently technical, fusing elements of screamo, punk, prog- and math-rock into a succinct, accessible package. Its tight rhythm section opts for propulsive grooves over cacophonous bombardment, lending it an unexpectedly danceable quality. Its unusually bright, clean guitars, meanwhile, have a crystal-like tone to them – not unlike some of the guitar work on Battles’ breakthrough album, ‘Mirrored’. Together, these make ‘Kalopsia’ a startlingly unique screamo album in spite of its myriad, recognisable influences. More importantly, they also create a curiously enjoyable balance between chaos and control that is admirably cohesive, but more importantly, thoroughly enjoyable.
RICHARD CRAIG