Artist: iNFeCTeD
Title: Crawlspace
Type: Album
Label: Prime Cuts Music

‘Crawlspace’ was originally released in 1994, though these Australians since went on a very different industrial path to what this album represents. There are flourishes of straight ahead death metal, not of any particular trait or sub-genre, somewhat it is a mix of ideas, and it ambles along quite nicely until you get to the killer track ‘Once More’ that has a certain Swedish feel about it. The remainder of the album tries hard not to fall into the mid-nineties plod along death metal with surprising inspiration taken from the latter 90’s experimental stage of Napalm Death (not the speed, more the groove), and North America (the groove of Obituary and John Tardy). Hey, we are not finished here, you also get some tribal South American leanings and all parts in between, one can say a bit of a whirlwind of ideas. When played high volume level, you get the full appreciation of the albums sound, and my point would be, to my mind if this is remastered as it said it is, its very much a quiet album in modern day terms. Towards the latter part of the album, Infected’s latter “industrial” influence starts to come to the forefront; a shame, because the earlier part of the album is not that bad at all.

These Australians cannot get their Florida or Swedish roots out of the equation. It makes for good listening; I am just let down by the constant drum fills and non-cohesive rhythm. ‘Crawlspace’ is a nice listen, which is just it; it is nice, not too crusty or dirty, not too fast and not something that really stands out from the crowd. But when you think about when this album was recorded, there were a lot of bands recreating this style, as there are today, but it does sound a little dated whereas other bands have managed to produce the same style but make things fresh for new millennium. It is definitely worth a listen, but whether you will be happy with your purchase, well that remains to be seen.

http://www.myspace.com/infectedaustralia
http://www.primecuts.com.au

Paul Maddison

MTUK HOME