It’s been eight years since Craneium released their debut record. Back then, the Finns were releasing records on the Ripple Music label, and you know what that means? Or you do if you’re still reading this.
Fuzzy, slightly psychedelic and with a guitar tone straight out of the 70s. But one thing it’s not – simply because I never know what the label is for – is “stoner rock” this absolute nonsense term needs binning.
Because this- their fourth album – is way better than a mere cliché. “The Point Of No Return” is comfortably their best, but crucially, most ambitious record yet.
Only six tracks, but over half an hour of superb music, “One Thousand Signs” starts with an incessant, insistent riff. Pulses and these are epic soundscapes with prog-like peaks and troughs.
“The Sun” however, although ambitious, is more straight-up rock. The guitar work from a combination of Andreas Kaján and Martin Ahlö is sensational.
“A Distant Shore” lurks and floats – or at least it does till it explodes. And my god, when it does! Then there’s the harmonies, the guitarists also provide the vocals and the textures are incredible.
The fact that Craneium aren’t the usual band from this part of Scandinavia, where it’s all glam rock or death metal it seems, is underlined by the multi-layered, “. …Of Laughter And Cries”, a massive, vast soundscape.
And if the suspicion they might have heard a Rush song or two has hung over this, then it is right to the fore on “Things Have Changed”.
There is a primal bass rumble from Jonas Ridberg underpinning “Search Eternal” (the rhythm section is completed by drummer Joel Kronqvist) and whatever this is looking for, it’s not clear that it found it.
And that’s the crux of the issue with bands like this. The journey is never done, there’s always exploration. A place to reach they can never find. But on records like “Point Of No Return” the joy is in the travelling, not the destination.
Rating 8.5/10
