Ardenti Crucis: Deeper the Thoughts, Darker the Fear 12"

Ardenti Crucis: Deeper the Thoughts, Darker the Fear 12” (Asilo Oniron) If you’ve been reading my staff picks for the past year or so, you know I’ve been educating myself on Greek punk, so when this debut record from Thessaoloniki, Greece’s Ardenti Crucis crossed my desk, it piqued my interest. While Ardenti Crucis’s music doesn’t have much to do with the 80s Greek punk that’s been a main focus of my off-the-clock record listening, I think the Sorry State faithful will dig this hard, so I imported a small stack of copies. It’s hard to sum up the sound of Deeper the Thoughts, Dark the Fear with just a few words because it tramples all over the established boundaries between genres. The album starts with a synth-based intro that sounds a lot like Visage’s synth-pop classic “Fade to Grey,” but that instrumental intro gives little indication of what’s to come. Once the proper songs kick in, they’re generally fast and punky, with an oi!-ish vocalist who has a slightly tuneful shout, but the instrumentation is dense and unique. Ardenti Crucis’s rhythm section is fantastic, and there’s so much going on with those parts of the songs that at first it’s tough to focus on anything else. The bassist and drummer are both busy players, but they make it work with strong hooks and melodies rather than aimless wanking. The drumming is particularly strong, keeping a constant, upbeat and punky pulse while filling the songs with interesting rhythmic ideas. There’s this one thing the drummer does that I really love where they’ll switch back and forth between that kind of standard post-punk two-handed hi-hat beat (something I really don’t like when it’s deployed generically) and a more conventional rock beat, sometimes moving between these from bar to bar, always in a way that complements what the guitarist and bassist are doing. The guitarist is similarly versatile, moving back and forth between chords and notes, and the synth provides yet another layer, ripping away with their own complementary melodies and rhythms. While the music isn’t similar at all (aside from a general sense of dark melody), the overall effect is similar to something like Leatherface, where there’s so much going on that it can be tough to parse, yet somehow there’s a central core that comes through the maze of details and makes the songs immediate and powerful. Since there’s so much going on, I could see Ardenti Crucis having some trouble finding an audience. Folks who like the recent wave of “cold oi!” informed by post-punk will find a lot to like here, but there’s so much other stuff on Deeper the Thoughts that it doesn’t rest comfortably in that lane. However, those of us who crave novelty in our punk rock will find this a dense but gratifying album.