Crippled Black Phoenix – Banefyre | Album Review

Labelling themselves as a voice for the voiceless, few bands have mastered dark atmospheric rock music to the extent that Crippled Black Phoenix have.

With an 18-year discography spanning a dozen albums, the band aim to push comfort zone and genre boundaries, aiming to give their audience a deep and fascinating listening experience. With several new additions to the band’s lineup as well, the sound of the new album promises to be fresh even for longstanding fans of the band.

The album kicks off with an eerie chanted introduction, ‘Incantation for the Different’, before launching into a monologue critiquing the idea of “difference” in the modern class-system of society. Whilst pure in intention, the monologue does come off as slightly cliched – the idea of alternative bands painting themselves as the “voice of the voiceless and the different” has been around for decades; it does seem like it’s time to move on to some newer ideas. Fortunately, the buildup to the first song of the album ‘Wyches and Basterdz’ is then pulled off successfully – launching the album as a melodic yet melancholy sonic assault that provokes both emotion and thought from the listener. 

The album progresses with chant-laden ‘Ghostland’, an eerily melancholic song that propels the listener into an atmospheric downward spiral; yet provokes the image of hope nonetheless, in thematic reminder of the album’s commentary of a respite for the hopeless and downtrodden in society. Political commentary is also present, in tracks such as ‘The Reckoning’, and titular ‘Bonefire’ – the former with the current Conservative British government’s fox-hunting ties and the latter with a tirade against dishonest politicians in the game for the sole intention of making money for themselves. Though despite these political undertones that occasionally emerge, the Crippled Black Phoenix remain adamant that Banefyre is an album about overcoming being put down for being “different” from “everyone else”.

Musically, aside from thematically, the album offers a diverse range of sounds appealing to a variety of listeners. Of course, the musicality centres around dark ambient hard rock; yet there are heavier elements just as there are lighter ones. Songs such as ‘The Reckoning’ dive into heavy crescendos, whilst its sequel ‘Bonefire‘ develops a riff-centric-yet-melodic overture with beautiful vocal harmonies betwixt Belinda Kordic and Joel Segerstedt as vocalists. 

The album finishes with a new track from band-leader Justin Greaves’ new project with Kordic, ‘No Regrets’ a slight departure from the more melodic tones from earlier on in the album but no less experimental albeit with a heavier touch; though it could do without the Muse-esque guitar/synth break towards the end of the track that sounds somewhat confused. In retrospect, though, it is a fitting end to a journey of an album. At almost two hours long – Banefyre is an ambitious mammoth release by a relatively unknown band, despite how long they have been playing together. Regardless of this though, it is a success – despite the theme being somewhat cliched at times – with interesting and empathic musical elements at play throughout.