Black Metal and a Crywank

When I asked Stuart if he wanted to come to Crywank with me, he was understandably confused. Thankfully, I was able to quickly able to correct any misunderstandings and on Monday night we headed to see Crywank, performing with Caïna, Old Skin, and Ithaca at Power Lunches.

Crywank is an acoustic anti-folk duo from Manchester who have been told “they are the worst named band in the country”. Started in 2009, they’ve released three albums (their most recent this past November) and I was pleasantly surprised that they continue to perform songs from all of them.

They opened with a cheery song off their newest album singing “everyone I love is going to die, and I will die as well”, immediately followed by an emotionally charged rendition of Pope Alexander off their first album. What followed was 30 minutes of sad songs interspersed with witty self deprecating humor and a ditty about paperclips.

The live show was everything that I could have hoped for and more, putting all the emotion heard in the recordings into the live show. From the more depressing songs such as Hikikomori, to a surprisingly lighthearted I Am Shit, not once was I disappointed by the song choice or performance. Mixed in with it all was a humorous commentary, poking fun at themselves for writing such over the top sad music.

Crywank put on a great live show, and if you ever have the chance to see them perform live I’d recommend doing so; you won’t regret it. After Crywank, the bands all got a bit noisier, so it’s best if Stuart takes over the review.

First of the heavier acts were Ithaca. They seemed to be aiming for a sound somewhere in the gulf between Meshuggah and The Fall of Troy, but without living up to the level of either of those acts, they ended up coming across as Lamb of God trying too hard. It wasn’t exactly unpleasant, but after all that Crywank’s set had offered, I definitely felt like we were heading on a downward trajectory.

Luckily for me, I was proved wrong by Old Skin. They may feature Crywank’s percussionist on drums, but they could not be a more different act. Their sound is easily described by the chaotic hardcore tag, so basically, think Converge. That’s definitely not a bad thing though. For those of you who haven’t been, Power Lunches is a basement in Dalston with room for about 80 people. It turned what was already a really intense and heavy set into a mind melting mix of furious screams, cataclysmic riffs and pounding drums. It was really quite something.

The intensity level didn’t slow down there though. I’ve put my ears through a lot over the years, and so I generally consider really loud gigs as about the correct volume. Caïna hurt. Like physically hurt. In a good way. The man behind Caïna is Andrew Curtis-Brignell, and he has crafted himself quite a reputation in the UK ambient black metal scene. Apparently the name comes from Dante’s Inferno, where Caïna is a bottomless fissure of eternally frozen blackened ice. It’s suprising how well that describes the sound. A whirl of reverb drenched screams, shouts and chants creates an unbelievably intense soundscape that chills you to the bone while the volume liquifies your mind.

Sadly, his set was somewhat ruined by technical problems. His guitar never started working, so around fifteen minutes after the scheduled start, we were informed he was just going to play vocal stuff. We got two tracks of that before the rest of his equipment also stopped working. He gave a fairly grumpy apology and had to call it a night. It was an extremely frustrating end to the night, especially given how incredible the two tracks he did manage to play were. I will definitely be keeping an eye out for more London dates, because I can only imagine how good the full live experience would be.