Kraanium - The Art of Female Sodomy (2009)

Note: this is a review for the original 2009 version, I am aware there is a 2013 remaster of the album to which several of the complaints might not apply.

The cover art for The Art of Female Sodomy is quite a bit more fucked up than the Kraanium debut; specifically the sort of nasty satisfaction on the faces of the male and female victims. However, of the Norwegians' three full-length records to date, I find this sophomore the most lacking. It's like a denser, more savage spin on the formula of the first one, but for some reason I came away feeling a little less impressed with the dynamic range of the instruments, which feel phoned in...not from one home to the next via telecommunications, but literally someone picked up the handset and smashed it repeatedly into your face. I don't think it honestly matters much, because the devoted brutal death metal fan is going to pursue it anyway since it's 'so fucked up', it's on a label with a decent reputation for the shit, and has song titles like "Masturbation with Fermented Entrails", "Severed Stump Fistfuck" and "Reverse Abortion", but truth be told I just won't ever reach for this over its siblings on those rare occasions when I feel the mood for some unforgiving, conscienceless, mid-level death metal.

Perhaps the first had desensitized me to their sound a little, but then I also enjoyed Post Mortal Coital Fixation from 2012. Perhaps it's that there are a couple rehashed tunes from the debut, and a fucking Waking the Cadaver cover (who cares?!?)...and that with those and the pair of 'bonus tracks' removed this would be little more than a scant, average EP. Nonetheless, the formula is much the same here: atmospheric samples (some might be original, I didn't track all these down to their sources) used to indoctrinate the listener into a barrage of bulldozer blast and slam death metal which is 100% consistently concrete and straightforward in nature. Just a regular day at the butcher shop, with no passion put into the individual cuts, and no seasoning when the meat goes out to the display. All that could amount to a tangible atmosphere here is provided through those aforementioned samples, the guitars are monstrously mundane, especially the palm mute breakdowns which seem a little more prevalent and stripped down than on the debut. Drums feel more lethargic and non-invested, the bass tone here is really boring and subjugated by the rhythm guitar, and the vocals likewise seem to have less character, not that they were particularly distinct or original in the first place, but here they just bludgeon along without much believability to their psychotic message.

That lascivious glee in the eyes of the victims is nowhere to be found in the music. No visceral satisfaction, just a meat truck making a drop-off, and then the chops lumbering around at a zombified pace which seems disturbingly similar to the mosh tactics employed by really fat guys who just plow over girls and kids at a gig, throwing their weight around with little finesse. I don't expect Kraanium to bust out some fly leads or a ballad or anything, but The Art of Female Sodomy sounds hastily or lazily constructed to my ears, and the production doesn't do it much of a service; instruments felt too even to my ears and there's virtually no range or variation in either the sound or the songwriting. A total sausage fest, Scandinavian bro-down which lacks even the depth or character of American bands like Devourment who put a lot more oomph into their mother fucking slam while thinking impure thoughts about yours and everyone else's mother. Skip this if you're new to the band, and check out either of the record's that sandwich it...Ten Sickening Acts is just more fresh and 'innocent', while Post Mortal Coital has a nice rich tone to it and a lot of fun slams. Just wait out the blubbery moshing behemoth at the bar, he'll run out of energy before this 29 minute effort runs out of content.

Verdict: Indifference [6/10]

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Kraanium - Ten Acts of Sickening Perversity (2008)

It's pretty wild to think that misogynistic, brutal torture-porn death metal  has become such a familiar and 'safe' territory for some extreme listeners that it has evolved into its own sort of mythology, with its own lyrical and musical standards that are accepted without question. One wonders where the line blurs between what is being projected into the music for pure shock value and what might actually happen behind closed doors if one of the style's performers or fans had the motive or opportunity to fulfill these sick fantasies. I know, I know: it's just entertainment, right? Flying kites is fun, too, but there are a lot less female victims with axes in their heads if you're doing it right. Now, I'm not saying I'm some angel I've been listening to this stuff since Cannibal Corpse popularized it in the late 80s, have covered and therefor aggrandized hundreds of such albums, and even enjoy a few dozen myself, but it still baffles me that the envelope has been pushed so far that most of us treat these images and lyrics with the desensitization we treat slasher films and other extreme media. We're disgusting people, bros

Ten Acts of Sickening Perversity is not something you wanna have in your car stereo on a first date, unless you've successfully picked up George 'Corpsegrinder' at a bar. It's not something you'll want to bring to your next NOW meet-up. No, it's thanatosis in the most puerile form: spasm-inducing chug-centric barbarian slam death with the requisite horror samples uses as intervals to pace out each struggling bowel movement better known as a 'song'. Vocals are malicious pig squeals neutered alongside the groovy pacing of the guitars, which are all more or less paraphrased from various Cannibal Corpse and Suffocation tunes with a degree of low end ballast borrowed from mid-period Morbid Angel records like Domination or Blessed Are the Sick, albeit with more of a knife's edge to the distortion and a dissonant density to various chords that are hammered out in the middle or closure of riffing phrases. The bass is fantastic, scuzzy blood-soaked entrails whipping free from an eviscerate mid-section, coiled and floppy and fluent enough that it becomes apparent the musician actually gives a damn; while the percussion is thick and powerful, loads of thick cymbals and snares crashing alongside the rhythm guitar to give it a far more bouncy, gyrating, sadistic feel for your non stop wigga ninja windmill kickboxing sessions with the homies.

It's tantalizingly brief at around 27 minutes, meaning you could probably listen to this before and after your workday commute, and get revved up with ideas of what you might do to your supervisors that or the next day once they come down on you for micro-management purposes or some lazy breach of protocol on your part. Variation is not a word in the Norwegians' dictionary, but having said that I think they pretty equally distribute the material into its faster and slamming segments to garner appeal from both the moshing crowd and those who want their brutality defined with a little dextrous intensity. The horror bits aren't particularly scary or satisfying in how they introduce individual tracks, but the whole of Ten Acts is violent and visceral enough that the garden variety sociopath who takes this shit with any grain of seriousness will probably spin it with alarming frequency. Personally, I liked the punch and punishment of the album, and that it never hung around enough to wear its welcome thin...just hacking and maiming, and fleeing before the authorities arrive, to ensure that a number of sequels are filmed, each one potentially bloodier than the last. That said, this is largely void of memorable songs, interesting songwriting ideas or anything bordering on essential. You listen to it for the mood and black humor it represents, rather than the strength of individual compositions. Even within this specific niche of death metal there are scores of better albums, but the Kraanium debut is fun and relentless enough that none of those complaints really registers for long.

Verdict: Win [7.5/10]

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Kraanium - Post Mortal Coital Fixation (2012)

I have a tendency to associate Norwegian death metal with the more amorphous, dissonant and unusual acts like Obliteration or the cult favorites Molested, but Kraanium are playing with a decidedly US appeal to their slam-oriented misogynistic brutality, and doing a fine job of it. The group's second album, The Art of Female Sodomy flew in one of my ears and back out the other, but I recall getting some enjoyment out of their 2008 debut Ten Acts of Sickening Perversity. Now, in the near past, I seem to have generated some antipathy over the fact that I don't focus in on a lot of releases in this particularly niche, that I specifically dislike this sound, but nothing could be further from the truth. I've listened to and continue to listen to death metal in ALL its incarnations since the damned genre started (hell, before it started). The caveat is that I hold it even its most brutal, masochistic artisans to the same standards I would hold almost anything: the necessity for solid songwriting, engaging rhythmic variation and consistent value. Extremity for extremity's sake is not all that interesting to me if I can't remember it 15 minutes later.

The reason I bring this up is because Post Mortal Coital Fixation brings all three of these things to the table, and it's an enjoyable slugfest that should appeal to fans of slam gods like Dying Fetus or Devourment with ease. The Norwegians build this enormous tone to the guitars which curries a rich, old school depth despite the fact that it's constantly being used as a catalyst for as much moshing as possible, conjoined to loads of squeals and thundering double bass action that strikes just as closely to the gut as the incessant, bouncing grooves of tracks like "Stillborn Neurotic Fuck Fest" and "Baptized in Boiling Sewage". Yet Kraanium definitely has a faster, meaner streak to it which is incorporate among a lot of the slower pit dynamics. A lot of the cuts have blasted sections like "Orgy of Cannibalistic Fornication" and "Compulsive Mutilation Disorder", even if they're not immensely accelerated; and they definitely give the drummer free reign to hammer out loads of fills above the more predictable rock grooves. The bowel rupturing bass tone is also to be lauded, so copious that I don't recommend listening on an upset stomach, and though Martin Funderdud's vocals might not stand out as significantly unique for the genre, but they deliver their gruesome deeds with admirable, guttural enunciation. In particular, I dig his sustained notes which sound like some taxed air filter on a stagnant fish tank.

Post Mortal Coital Fixation is not exceptionally unique or creative, and a lot of its appreciation will hinge on just how much the audience still loves their grisly gore and sample-driven carnage. Personally, I found it fun to just sit back and let my conscience lay into the huge, meat fisted grooves that the band uses as a slamming substrate. Could they offer more variation than you find on this disc? Certainly. Are they capable of more atmosphere? I would say so. Hell, just listen to the resonant growl and frightful ambiance set to the female screaming at the intro to "Orgy of Cannibalistic Fornication" and just imagine how SICK an album like this would be with more instances of such woven through the perverse pummeling. That said, Kraanium has done a good job in arranging 35 minutes of intestinal revulsion, and to top it all off they include a cover of "Entrails Full of Vermin" from Russian slam butchers Abominable Putridity (from their debut In the End of Human Existence), likely to impress a few fans with a broader appreciation for the style (though I've got no real recollection of the original). Post Mortal Coital Fixation should prove worthwhile for any wannabe necrophiliac, mutilation addict or mosh baron out there, but it's pretty fun for the rest of us too.

Verdict: Win [7.5/10]

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