Jumbo's Killcrane

Bio:

.. Review from EXCLAIM Magazine!: Like a primordial behemoth rising from the darkest depths, Kansan dirge-dealers Jumbo’s Killcrane have deviated significantly from last year’s prog-sludge Carnaval De Carne record. Instead of pursuing their bio’s Nirvana-meets-Eyehategod touchstone, the trio dove headlong into the tar pits and emerged a different monster altogether: less prog, more sludge, with tunes averaging seven minutes a pop. After a lengthy intro of drone noise somewhere between early Pink Floyd and Stinking Lizaveta, the title track immediately kicks in with the band’s seething neo-dirge à la Grief. Guitarist/vocalist Erik Jarvis’ gargling tones vacillate between Iron Monkey’s Johnny Morrow (RIP) and Corrosion of Conformity’s Pepper Keenan. There’s even a point in "Brown" where the band throws a change-up, switching from their plodding doom over to Coalesce-inspired metalcore ... but only for a minute. "Locust Blanket" resembles the almost-random beats and chords of Harvey Milk, while "Coital Abyss" replaces the usual loping pace with a semi-gallop (in doom terms, at least). Album closer, "Die, Stabbed," finally reprises their former prog stylings, though still allotting ample time for Jarvis’ tangential solos. A converse to their more math-y records, The Slow Decay is more deliberately doomier to sate fans of the heavy.

Review from Iann Robinson in METAL SLUDGE: Remember the dueling banjo scene in Deliverance? Well take out the banjo and add grimy sludgecore and you basically have Jumbo Killcrane. This is ugly, brutal, slow music, angry to it’s core and violent in it’s execution. Fucking killer stuff.

Review from IN MUSIC WE TRUST: "Have you ever noticed in the movies that whenever a character is being tormented by a demonic force or maybe even entering the expanse of the underworld that everything seems to move in slow motion for them? That they seem to progress as if they have become embedded in amber? JUMBO'S KILLCRANE is the musical equivalent of that. This is tortured music that literally crawls out of the speakers and overwhelms the listener. It's like being buried alive. slowly. You get the impression when listening to "The Slow Decay" that if distortion and syncopated beats were a tangible commodity for trade that JUMBO'S KILCRANE would have a corner on the market. Superior sludge. Absolutely!" - Jeb Brannin

Review from DEAD ANGEL : The Killcrane return with yet more bludgeoning math-metal, opening with a feedback dirge and the occasional flurry of percussion on "intro" before seguing into the thundering crawl of "the slow decay" -- which itself turns into a racing slab of menace. This disc is different from their earlier releases; my memory's a tad shaky, but I'm pretty sure the guy beating up the drum kit this time is a new addition, and their sound has become leaner, more straightforward, and less reliant on the tricky-riff thing. Which is not to say that they'll be mistaken for AC/DC anytime soon -- there's still plenty of proggy moves in their seismic assault, and their penchant for velocity makes them far more forbidding than anything you're likely to hear on the radio. The songs are long (mostly between seven and nine minutes), allowing plenty of time for radical shifts in direction, tempo, riffs, mass, velocity, defiance of gravity.... The lurching properties of sludge-rock in the vein of Eyehategod and Grief shows up in "brown," while "locust blanket" combines rapid-fire drumming and stun-guitar riffs. There's even a bluesy element to the guitar lines that shows up from time to time, especially on "coital abyss," but as "die, stabbed" proves, they haven't forgotten their origins as a stop 'n start machine weaned on sick riffs and weird time changes. They've just streamlined the engine and torqued it for more horsepower, that's all. Their evolution doesn't stray far enough from the earlier stuff to scare away the devoted, but by clarifying the sound and making it just a tad simpler (and thus marginally easier to digest), they may well win over a whole new boatload of head-shakin', math-lovin' metal geeks. The men of the Killcrane do not embarrass themselves here....

Member Since:

March 07, 2007

Members:

Erik Jarvis, Adrian Proctor, Troy Richardson, Noel Harris, Aaron Mersman, Brodie Rush, Paul Mendez, James Riley, Anthony Diale

Sounds Like:

Marching elephants, gargling of blood, tinkering of equipment

Record Label:

Crucial Blast Records