Year of release: 2018
Label: Der Schwarze Tod
Rating: 7,7 / 10
Because of a personal acquaintance with its founder, I know the band KRAHNHOLM from it's very start, but I never really wanted to review their records. The demo of the year 2013 was good, but the deceased Kunsthauch prods didn't wanted to trade fucking CD-R's, so it was not possible to get the disk. The debut full-length I simply didn't liked. But "Granting death" was released by solid label Der Schwarze Tod, and I must say that the album deserved it.
KRAHNHOLM plays atmospheric metal with absolutely right influences - WALKNUT, old DRUDKH and so on. No newfangled hipsters and insanely clean garbage. Compassionate users of Metal Archives have even added FOREST and BRANIKALD to the list of KRAHNHOLM-like artists, but this is completely unnecessary. Although Troy, the main composer of the band, regularly looks in the direction of BBH and searching for the inspiration int the works of the Hall, so something common here is observed. The mood of KRAHNHOLM music is radically sullen, cold, gloomy, colorless and decadent. Even WALKNUT in comparison with it sounds very inspiring and bright. According to the title, the album carries a detached aura of merciless, ugly and inevitable death. The horseman on a strange horned monster jumps on corpses that are scattered from old age, half absorbed by the earth. And only the branches of long-dead trees watch this. No doubt, the cover of the album is very relevant and powerful - so powerful that the former guitarist of the band TOTENBURG even stole it for his bootleg re-edition of "Pestpogrom".
"A Whirlwind of a Thousand Blades" song and a vocal line slightly spoil the album. The song is a classic example of trying to dilute a hypnotic atmosphere with a malicious track. I have never heard of anyone succeeding in this. "A Whirlwind ..." is not so bad, but still without it the album would be more seamless. Aggressive tremolos of this kind is not really needed "Granting Death". As for the vocals, it is performed with the right feeling, but in the mix it is raised too high. It seems that one of the dead people lying dormant in the ground suddenly wakes up and start to shout right in your face. An album is released as 6-panel digipack with a neat design, executed in a good style. Unfortunately, there are no lyrics inside. You can see more on a video.
English (UK) 
Крыўская