Crypts

A few years before Crypts, er ... came to life ... frontman Steve Snere was snarling his way through Fugazi-influenced post-hardcore punk with Seattle’s These Arms Are Snakes. After that band’s dissolution, Snere changed direction, hooking up with programmer Bryce Brown and video/visual artist Nick Bartoletti (who also plays synths and other machines). Together they embarked on a creative endeavor that has more in common with late-’70 art-school punk than ‘80s hardcore. Crypts is blackhole-dark, brooding, and noisy, reaching back nearly four decades to the early sounds of industrial pioneers Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire. Crypts' live shows are unpredictable and sometimes surprisingly feral, with Snere creating a confrontational, nihilist atmosphere. Throughout Crypts, the group's first album, the lyrics are indecipherable, with Snere’s vocals suffocating in reverb and sheets of bristling, barbed keyboard noise or brittle, crackling beats and synth notes that are dour and bleak. The opening track brings on a goosebump-raising chill, as gale winds whip through horror-movie synths that screech like the dead being rudely awakened.