Khanate — To Be Cruel

After a deathly slumber of fourteen years To Be Cruel is the first new album of material from Khanate- the truly crawling & deeply harrowing Us doom metal collective. And I think it’s fair to say this four-track/ just over hour-long LP- sees the band focusing their sound to its most pared back, hope ‘n’ sanity battering, and at points punishingly experimental.

Released by Sacred Bones Records- as either a CD, two different double vinyl pressings, or as a digital download. It really finds the band honing their sound totally and utterly into its own genre/ bracket, Yes- there are elements of doom, sparse drone, and experimental rock in the band's sound, but really they can just now be classified as Khanate.

For review purposes, I’m writing about the CD version of the album. The CD comes presented in a four-panel digipak- which takes in black, watery blood red, and yellowed visuals- overlaid with gold lettering & piled up geometric shapes. Also featured is a twelve-page inlay booklet which takes in more abstract and macabre textured bound visuals. As well as full lyrics, and on its last page a small series of in-shadow band photos. A clearly very well-thought-out, and subtly unsettling bit of packaging.

For this release, the line-up was Alan Dubin- Vocals. Stephen O’Malley- guitar & feedback. James Plotkin- bass guitar & synthesis. Tim Wyskida- drums and percussion.  With the material being recorded/ (subtly) layered up in stages between the years 2017 and 2021. So very much like a skilfully & slowly tooled knife blade- this cuts deep- leaving a serious impact and troubling trauma in its wake.

Each of the four monolithic tracks comes in at just under or just over the twenty-minute mark- with zero hope, joy, or calm to be found anywhere.  The album starts with “Like A Poised Dog” which begins with lengthy sustains of grey guitar ‘n’ temple pressing bass hover- which are cut ever so often with jarring percussion hit & taut feedback webbed silence.  Some minutes in we slip into this slurred & discordant blues slide guitar-like riff- with Dubin’s pained & demented vocals flooding into proceedings as the riff haphazardly stops ‘n’ starts- with buzzing ‘n’ baying feedback sustains ever so often engulfing the lurching structure- like a near to death body crawling through curls of barbwire & fly hazes.

Next, we have “It Wants To Fly”, and even after ten or so plays- this track still feels so punishing, macabrely disturbing, and at points very deeply unsettling. It opens with a blend of coldly ‘n’ wonkily chiming guitar tone & swirlingly barren feedback- then fairly soon Dubin bays in ‘I’m going to take you apart- it’s alright you can look away’ from here he goes onto detail pulling someone apart with his hands- bit by bit. Behind this, we get the dragged-out, crude, and lumbering to stop-start structure of pulled-out doomed guitar chugs,  unsettling feedback wails, blunt bass slugs, and percussive punchers & stabs.  Dubin performance is truly unnerving/ at points generally terrifying- as he shifts between shredded & pained wails & sinister matter-of-fact talking. With the rest of the band wonderful intensify the whole thing up to new levels.

We play out with the title track. This opens with a blend of rolling-yet-subdued vocal hisses and light growls- over a pared-back blend of tolling almost dark blues country riffing, and slowly snapping percussion. In time Dubin whispers shift into words, before he suddenly billows out ragged ‘n’ shill intentions. And the torturous doom tone well and truly kicks in- with truly searing feedback tones marking each riff sequence. As we move on the four keep paring back to hovering unease broken by discord, and moments of sudden climbs. And when Dubin shrieks out ‘ I’m at an all-time low- cry with me, cry with me’ you feel it deep down in your marrow. My only very slight criticism of the track is the harmonic riff refrain that pops up ever so often rather brought to mind another one of the tracks from their early albums…but it’s no biggie, and it still works in the context of the track

When I heard that Khanate where dropping a new release after all this time- I really wondered if they would/ could still be as impactful, harrowing, and punishing as they had been in past. And I can certainly say they still are, and then some.  To Be Cruel is most definitely not an album for everyone- and I’d say if you’re not familiar with the band play a sample or two- because as an album it brings Khanate sound to new highs or lows…depending on how you look at it.