(2021)
This is a weird one, recorded between after Crow’s Last Chaos but before Grave New World or Death Comes Along (singer Crow’s other projects during this time), and it’s a bit of a blend of them all, a sort of the Rosetta Stone that links them all together.
Musically: Lots of atonal screaming with a backdrop of songs that sound “sort of” like Crow with less d-beat influence / standard song structure. For example, the song Apocalypse II has the same melody of a later Crow song, Konton Shin / Chaos God, but just one section repeated over and over with a rambling guitar solo following along that is a bit reminiscent of Crow’s compilation track “Dance of Death.” The second side starts with Apocalypse III, which is completely chaotic, with two separate drum and vocal tracks in the left and right channels. It’s brain breaking stuff, the kind of thing you can imagine happening to you in some kind of drug-induced hallucination…then it goes into Dream, which musically could be a lost cut from Discharge’s Warning… era. The last track on the record, The End, would later end up on The Crow.
Apparently the rest of Crow (the band) didn’t like this new musical direction, but this was recorded, and recently released for the first time. So yes, it’s a mixed sonic bag that sounds like a crazy mess, until you take into account to the different bands that Crow was in (Crow, Grave New World, Death Comes Along): and then all of a sudden it makes sense (kinda). For more critical reading on this era of Crow / Grave New World / Death Comes Along, check out Negative Insight’s article. How many times can I say Crow?
Record sleeve is silkscreened and comes with a big poster and a few inserts.