Like the two albums that came before it from audio terrorists Knoll, their third LP As Spoken is winding and bleak. Their ultra-raw recordings and furious drum blasts keep earning them the “deathgrind” tag. But reducing Knoll to a genre is a disservice to the incredible record they’ve made, in which they masterfully weave existential gloom into the music. Using their unbelievable velocity and heaviness as tools to make creatively intense music — rather than relying on those techniques to set the mood and call it a day — Knoll’s dissonant chaos shares common ground with the high art of Sun Ra or Sonic Youth.
Best Metal Album
