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Rating: Although I have never been a particularly devoted listener in search of the typical black made in Sweden sound, I must say that as soon as I inserted this disc into the stereo, I couldn't help but fall in love with the way these four guys play.
However, it should be noted that, despite their geographical origins, Craft's sounds do not in any way echo the likes of Marduk and Dark Funeral. On the contrary, during the scant forty minutes of sonic assault, the influences of these bands are mostly nonexistent. Instead, the musicians create a very personal sound, still indebted to the Norwegian forefathers, especially Satyricon, staying generally within not very fast rhythms but with bursts of incredible fury and mid-tempos that completely chill the listener.
The genre proposed is thus a crude but absolutely well-produced black metal, not very innovative: a product of this type would definitely have made much more sense in the nineties rather than in 2002, the year of its release. However, the group was formed in 1994, releasing their first album “Total Soul Rape,” but lineup issues plagued them until 2000, thus terribly delaying the birth of Terror Propaganda.
Craft wastes no time with intros and customary screams: the icy riff of “Ablaze” immediately starts, a song that is absolutely Darkthronian, of the “A Blaze in the Northern Sky” period; the drumming is haunting, but the most striking thing is the singer Nox’s spectral voice, very personal, maybe not very powerful, but horrifying; it's hard for me to compare it to someone else, but if I had to, I would liken it to Nattefrost's, though much more shrill and more integrated into the structure of the song.
It should be noted that, rarely during the album, alongside Nox’s high-pitched screaming, there is a barely hinted growling that helps to make the whole thing very evocative. “The Silence Thereafter,” a song with very interesting lyrics, slowly grows while maintaining the stylistic coordinates of the previous one without particular peaks of interest. It fades after six minutes to make way for the very interesting “Reaktor 4,” a song that indeed talks about the Chernobyl incident; in this song Craft evolves, the voice becomes more powerful, the drums dictate an atypical rhythm, and in the end guitarist John even indulges in a solo!
“Hidden Under the Skin” is a very rhythmic song featuring chilling stop and go and riffs paced like Carpathian Forest. Then “False Orders Begone” starts, with a slow pace and cadence typical of Satyr's group; stop and go here again alternate with accelerations and another mini solo concludes it all. It's the turn of “N.D.P. - Nearly Dead Parasites” - which doesn’t differ much from the rest of the album, pleasantly flowing for three minutes.
This leads to one of the best songs on the album, namely “616,” which is also the most experimental; it indeed opens with a riff taken directly from the stables of thrash, a riff you could absolutely find in a Slayer record, then leads into an obsessive and slow rhythm that accompanies the listener until the fading of the song, and the absence of vocals is not felt at all.
The whole thing is closed by the title track which once again recalls the early Carpathian Forest in its hypnotic slow and morbid advance, often interrupted by long guitar highs accompanied by Nox’s inhuman screams that create moments where suffering and discomfort pervade the mind of the listener. The album is beautiful and is appreciated from the first listen; surely, this is not easy-to-find material but, as far as I know, they are still printing it as it seems Craft enjoys much fame among American blacksters.
I therefore recommend listening to all lovers of the genre and surely the purchase to the more nostalgic among you. The art expressed by Craft is genuine and it is evident that the four musicians are absolutely invested in the themes they tackle and that the discomfort expressed through their music is part of them and not the result of who knows what tabletop attitudes, as unfortunately happens more and more often within the scene.
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