Petrale (Croatia) — The World Down There — 2024 full length

The ninth album of this Croatian solo act.

This album continues the immersive and confrontational journey characteristic of its discography, further developing the themes and motifs explored in his earlier work, particularly as a sequel to “Salvation Precipitates”. As such, “The World Down There" delves even deeper, offering a surreal and haunting soundscape that fluctuates between dissonant black metal, doom-laden sludge, and occasional death metal intrusions. This work is unapologetically dense, with every track conjuring a different facet of Petrale's unique sound, which at its core, is something remarkably dark, dissonant, and imaginative.

Petrale's knack for melding chaos with intricacy is on full display. The prominent basslines often overpower the guitar, a characteristic that evokes an abyssal atmosphere where melody teeters on the edge of dissolution. This does not detract from the album’s impact, but rather complements it, giving us listeners the sensation of being enveloped in a brooding undercurrent. The compositions oscillate between intense chromatic progressions and blown-out Icelandic-style dissonance, amplified by complex, unpredictable rhythms that evoke a sense of ritualistic disorder. The structural fluidity, an ever-changing tempo and dynamic layering of guitars and vocals, reflects a rejection of traditional black metal frameworks, pushing the genre’s boundaries toward a more avant-garde or experimental sound.

“The World Down There” taps into cryptic and esoteric imagery that reinforces the album’s sense of foreboding. Each song seems to unravel scenes from a surreal nightmare. In “Impersonating a Blade", there are references to living blades and ghostly smoke figures, while “Po noći se boje vidi kad svijetli iz grobova” delves into a haunting vision of graveyard illuminations and vacant coffins. Petrale lyrics suggest decay, cyclical damnation, and an oppressive atmosphere that matches the music’s intensity. Meanwhile, “A Brief Discussion About the Remoteness of a Loss” paints a picture of a suffocating grief that clings like a black mist, gasping for air at every cry. These lyrics do more than set a mood, they act as portals into Petrale's introspective exploration of existential and nihilistic themes.

The album’s closing title track encapsulates this bleak narrative with references to ancient waters, hallways that “existed since ever” and surreal visuals of airborne crystals dissolving upon impact. Petrale crafts an allegorical descent and suffering that questions not only the world beneath but also the nature of existence itself, wrapping up the album in an enigmatic and unsettling way that lingers with the listener.

For those familiar with Petrale’s work, “The World Down There" is a natural, albeit twisted, progression. It disregards conventional structures, embracing chaos as an art form while maintaining a calculated attention to detail that is both disorienting and mesmerising, inviting the listener to immerse themselves in its nightmarish depths, promising an intense, boundary-pushing experience.


CD available through the Bandcamp

Band: Petrale
Album: The World Down There
Year: 2024
Label: Independent
Genre: Experimental Black Metal
Country: Croatia


https://petrale.bandcamp.com/album/th...


Tracklist:
1. Impersonating a Blade 00:00
2. Po noći se boje vidi kad svijetli iz grobova 08:26
3. A Brief Discussion About the Remoteness of a Loss 13:51
4. From Elongated Hollows 19:32
5. The Choreography of Two Thousand Legs 24:21
6. Rectangles Carved Into Reddish Soil 30:43
7. Walls Are Bloating 35:38
8. The World Down There 41:44






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