Calavera Calavera like to keep it spooky all year round and their latest album, Aleister Crowley, pairs perfectly with the holidaze ahead. Named after the famed occultist, mountaineer, and poet, Aleister Crowley opens with “Abbey of Thelema” (Crowley’s anti-monastery), a track filled with static noise synth organs and no melody. The set up is left wide open for the rest of the album.
Following the eerie opening track, Aleister Crowley changes mood and tempo with “Meat is Murder” (not a cover of the Smiths pro-veg classic). Using their signature sounds of moombahton and dubstep, this track channels those montages in ’90s computer-hacker flicks. The third track, “Breathtaking View of a Storm,” seems to slow everything down again, with sweet ethereal sounds emerging from left and right. That is until the drum rolls kick in and you’ll want to be up on your feet jiving. “Anthropophagie: Macarrones con chorizo” starts with a heartbeat and takes this album to new dimensions with lazer-snyth sounds, distorted vocals, and sometimes a bit too much white noise.
The fifth track, which spells out ‘Devil’ in Hebrew, brings in a guitar melody that will remain stuck in your head. Plus, factor in the repeated vocal line “What you think of” and the breakdown of industrial sounds, and you’ve got a sure-fire club banger. “Aleister Crowley,” the ode to the man himself, gives us a lovely melody and adventurous sounds over the repeated theme. A rough, in-your-face transition into the final track, “We Love Satan,” is saved by the dope use of chanting samples and erratic rhythms. This could be the last dance at a Satanic Prom Night.