Having your LP go past the hour mark can be pretty daring these days, so to reach past 70 minutes must be the sign of great confidence and greater creative output. Primarily the musical vision of the multi-talented Justin Greaves, Crippled Black Phoenix, particularly on Great Escape (Season of Mist) doesn’t much care for traditional songwriting or popular convention. What you’ll find here is an assembly of amplified guitars, pulsing electronics, whispery vocals and somber beats.

When these elements find the right balance, Crippled Black Phoenix paints weary pictures with the sporadic glimpse of sunlight patching through. ‘Times, They Are A Raging’ and ‘Great Escape (pt II)’ manage to find the sweet spot drenched with melancholy and guitar noise but they’ll make you work for that payoff. Turns out nothing on Great Escape comes for free or without challenge. With its deliberate pace and ghostly choruses ‘To You I Give’ comes across like a combination of Katatonia and The Contortionist’s contemporary sound, but before that you must endure the odd and circling samples of ‘You Brought it Upon Yourself.’ I’m sure those samples are to set the theme of the production to follow, but they can come across belaboring the point.

And that slight punishment in exchange for payoff turns into Great Escape’s central flaw. While most of the time the release is worthwhile, there’s too much buildup and excess. If you were to trim 15 minutes off the run time I think we find ourselves with a stronger composition. Example, while ‘Great Escape (pt II)’ really gels the sounds together, ‘Great Escape (pt I)’ just rings as hollow filler until the stronger half. While seeming rhythmically interesting, ‘Civil War (pt I)’ never builds to anything and becomes an unneeded interlude. ‘Rain Black, Reign Heavy’ spends a few minutes searching for itself before realizing that the weird trumpet and accordion bits is where we should’ve been the whole time.

Great Escape is not a bad album. On the contrary it can be quite good, but just be prepared to work for every bit and morsel.

6.0/10

HANS LOPEZ