Crowhill Tales - If I Were a Crow

Incredible neat instrumental passages. Long gone are the days when extreme metal bands were known only by the raw, and poorly played, instrumentals. Not anymore. “If I Were a Crow” is opened up with a neat neo-classical piece that can be included in that category of deceptive cadences I keep on telling you, guys. No one, I say really no one, who listens to the beautiful “Intro” will ever imagine that it would come a venomous extreme metal band. Crowhill Tales are a band that with lots of ability can cope both influences: neo-classical metal with extreme metal. Those, at times, never touch each other. Even in songs like “Suicidal Generation” – hum, what generation are they talking about. From where I’m standing all generations are suicidal, each one in its own way – such influences are set apart. It’s like having two different organisms into one. It’s beginning is neo-classical to the bones. There is a little merging spot in the middle, when vocals take over, which sounds great, to them go extreme. See that “Suicidal Generation” is nine minutes long. Guitars took the lead as a bridge to both genres. Vocals takes the lead to extreme metal.

Besides all that, Crowhill Tales divide their album “If I Were a Crow” into instrumental songs, with a neo-classical grip, and non-instrumental where vocals can take over the extreme metal lead. It’s natural to do that when a band has so diverse influences and want to show them. Some bands merge their influences, others set them apart as Crowhill Tales do. But, as I said before, there are some merging elements. There are tracks like “A lét elviselhetetlen szürkesége” with a beautiful melodic guitar work, and tracks like “Shattered Harmony” where the title explains it all. Extreme metal is here to shatter, not to put things together. Title track “If I Were a Crow,” though, is a merging point with its ten minute length. Guitars built an amazing tune.

Some extreme metal musicians, and fans, stand for that vocals in extreme metal can’t be clean. I see that, but my point is not all the time. It’s possible to merge clean vocals with graspy ones. Crowhill Tales prove us that in some long tracks that were built – I wonder – to dot that merging. Poetic cover, by the way.

Crowhill Tales “If I Were a Crow” was released on September 18th.

Track Listing: