Don't be surprised if, at least at first, the latest and best album by New York black metal re-constructers Krallice sounds like a blur. Though Years Past Matter is the band's shortest record to date, it is also their most relentless and unforgiving, comprising six tracks of impossibly choreographed and dense four-part motion. In light of their propensity for 10-plus-minute spans, Krallice have previously experimented with ways to ease ingestion of these monstrosities, employing an antiphonal, long-short-long tracklist for 2009's Dimensional Bleedthrough and both starting and ending 2011's otherwise monolithic Diotima with relatively brief pieces. But for the most part, Years Past Matter starts, lashes ahead for a dozen minutes at a time, and then, after a 16-minute closer that might be Krallice's most demanding and glorious piece of music yet, ends. Sure, there are a few relative breaks in the roil, like the two minutes of guitar haze that lead out of "IIIIIIII" or the doom-suggestive interlude before the album's triumphant close. But for the most part, Years Past Matter is arrogant and unapologetic-- a daunting, rewarding hour that calls for complete immersion.
In recent years, when it's come to bending black metal, plenty of acts have focused on the auxiliary instrumentation, whether that's the keyboard layers they add to the pieces, the digital beats that supplant or subsidize their drums, or the extra electronics and textures that might subdivide their songs. But Krallice are, at least in terms of personnel, a traditional four-piece, with two guitarists (Mick Barr and Colin Marston), a bassist (Nicholas McMaster), a drummer (Lev Weinstein), and two vocalists (Barr and McMaster) who approach their screams with equal gusto but very different tones. What separates Krallice, though, is their audacity and exactitude, meaning that they generally not only trot past the 10-minute mark but also do so with songs where every bit seems rigorously composed, where nothing seems arbitrary or extraneous.
They've never sounded as comprehensive and confident as they do on Years Past Matter. Album opener "IIIIIII", for instance, moves in fits and starts, droning, then roaring, then washing out, then galloping ahead-- all in about the first 80 seconds. The four members are synced so well and completely; McMaster's bass doesn't sit still waiting for the guitars or drums to chance, and the guitars act more like complements than competitors. Listening to Years Past Matter is almost like listening to the Flaming Lips' Zaireeka, where all four discs (or members, as it were) are meant to be heard at once, though it can be just as fascinating to try and isolate just one sound. If every band is supposed to write around its weakest link, by this point, it's probably best to quit calling Krallice a band. They show no such weakness.
Four albums in, what might now be most impressive about Krallice is how selflessly the quartet seems to write and render these songs. If you're just glancing at the track lengths, you might anticipate protratced solos or, at the very least, spotlights and showcases for Barr and Marston, two of the best guitarists working right now. But even when they're furthest out in front-- as on the back half of "IIIIIIIII", with their guitars in flinty dialogue and occasionally in dead-ahead harmony-- McMaster and Weinstein aren't sitting passively, waiting for their turn to come. They push and pull at the rhythm, as though to force the guitars one way or the other; in fact, one of the best guitar passages here, about seven minutes into "IIIIIIIII", stems from the sort of roller coaster Weinstein and McMaster create and the way Barr and Marston are able to dip down with it and zip back toward the crest without distraction.
All of those assets-- the complexity and precision, the density and cooperation, the rigor and the delivery-- coalesce perfectly during "IIIIIIIIIIII", a 16-minute epic that finds Krallice pushing past the limitations of anything they've ever done. Aside from a short section near the beginning, this closer is largely instrumental, built on a short, flicking riff that Marston and Barr stretch, contract, and subsequently spin into the strangest shapes. Led by Weinstein's versatility, the song's pieces seem to form a cycle of interconnected circles, where each section capitalizes on repetition and variation before shifting seamlessly into the next one. Krallice have never sounded so ecstatic before, so perfectly delirious with the strength of their own designs. Like all of Years Past Matter, its finale is great on first listen and increasingly tremendous on repeat. It's strange to admit it, but when this 16-minute beast snaps shut, I generally just play it again, giving the blur one more chance to blossom into clarity.
