Chances are that North Carolina based Progressive Deathcore band KROSIS are not your parents’ metal band. Their new album A Memoir Of Free Will (February 7, Unique Leader Records) undoubtedly drives that point home over the course of 50 minutes. Things start with “Gone, But Not Forgotten” and for the first 1:15 listeners would think that the band is going to keep things nice and calm until the track truly kicks in. It’s balls to the wall in intensity thanks to drummer Dan Cece in addition to guitarists Adam Thiessen and Brandon Scurlark. While they are far from clean and recognizable, Mac Smith’s vocals waste no time ensuring everyone knows what he’s about.
The intensity doesn’t really slow down until the opening of “An Elegy For A Man Alive” which features beautiful Indian-styled instruments for a brief moment until the band starts in with very djent-sounding guitars followed by a brief sludge-like breakdown before they change gears again and continue with the previous sound and riff styles. These boys don’t know how to stay with just one style of music and truly showcase that fact throughout the entire album. Tracks like “Psychoticlysm” take on a very ARCHSPIRE-like sound and get to showcase the technical skills that each band members possess.
The record’s shortest song “With Virtue I Am” starts off calm before it knocks everyone down with its sheer intensity. closer “A Memoir Of Free Will” is a ten-minute opus that could easily be played over loudspeakers when preparing for a mighty battle. Going from slow to ballistic through the very end there is no doubt that they are very serious about their music. A Memoir of Free Will is truly a masterpiece from start to finish and the 50-minute run time is a nice change in a world filled with albums that barely hit the thirty five minute mark and is most definitely not one for the faint of heart.
STANDOUT TRACKS: “Gone, But Not Forgotten”, “An Elegy for a Man Alive”, “Psychoticlysm”, “With Virtue, I Am Free”, “A Memoir of Free Will”
RATING: 9.5/10
-BRIAN “TORCH” IDELL
