Northern Ireland’s death/doom metal trio The Crawling to release new EP »What We Leave Behind« on October 2nd through Grindscene Records!
Lisburn, UK based death/doom metal trio The Crawling has announced their new two-track EP, »What We Leave Behind«, which will be released on October 2nd, 2026 through Grindscene Records.
Tracklist:
01. A Song To Nurse The Sickness
02. Bound To The Negative (Requiem)
Courtesy of Imperative PR:
The past is an uncertain country, a place reformed by longing and regret, a place of ever-shifting shadows and fading light where dreams may seem to live. Reimagined and reborn with every passing day and night, bestowed with a weight of meaning and measure that it never held when it was but the unassuming present. Wander too long in its endless forests and deepening chasms and its truth will be revealed…it is no idyll, no glorious moment when emotions were deeper, truer than they could ever be again; it is an ensnaring maze, a soul-consuming prison, its realities ephemeral, dust upon the wind.
“Nostalgia is not a memory; it is a malignancy.”
Formed in the midst of winter, 2014, in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, The Crawling have carved a reputation for themselves from obsidian and basalt. The crushing weight and unflinching honesty of both their music and their words has earned them both the respect of critics and peers and the staunch loyalty of those to whom their songs of lonely desolation, bleak truths and never healing wounds of loss and regret speak most keenly and clearly. Through a triumvirate of remarkable albums, including the revered »Wolves And The Hideous White« and the towering edifice that is 2023s »All Of This For Nothing«, accompanied by a superb supporting cast of EPs, singles and live releases, they have become a band that stands proudly alone. They sit comfortably within the bounds of death/doom metal, this is undeniable, but they do so in such a fashion that they can never be mistaken for any other band. And as we reach the darker, shorter days of this troubled year they offer up another powerful addition to their untarnished canon – an EP that lays bare our troubling obsession with the places, people, events and emotions of our past, examining the way in which we strive to live in the unreliable recollections of times gone by, the loves and losses, joys and heartaches, elevating them above our present and undermining our hope of a meaningful future. This is »What We Leave Behind«…
»What We Leave Behind« first offers up »A Song To Nurse The Sickness« – formidable in heaviness and implacable in purpose. The Crawling demonstrate their sonic integrity, unafraid to show the spaces between the notes, as the vocals are delivered with harsh clarity and the guitars bring the sombre, melancholy melody. It forces us to confront the choking caul of the past, the destructive nature of those consuming, drowning thoughts where reflection becomes immersion and remembrance becomes addiction. The clinging weight in each note, the terrifying bleakness of every word is made more powerful and poignant by the uncluttered, unembroidered presentation. This is not artifice, this is truth. Completing the EP and closing a chapter in The Crawling’s story is »Bound To The Negative (Requiem)«, a remarkable acoustic rebirth for one of the band’s finest songs, which appeared in its original, fiercer form on »All Of This For Nothing«. The song’s strength is illustrated by its ability to take on this new mantle and retain its emotional heft and bleak splendour. This is a genuine act of transformation, the band reaching into the grim nobility of the original and drawing out the glimmering threads of melody and reweaving them anew, capturing an aura of medieval balladry. Its sound and perspective have been reshaped, but the conclusion remains unchanged – mirroring the way in which memory repeatedly revises the past without fundamentally altering what actually happened.
With the resonance of the drums captured at The Parlour Recording Studios (The Haunted, At The Gates, Napalm Death etc) and all other aspects of the recording, mix and master kept ‘in house’, the sound of »What We Leave Behind« is unmistakeably The Crawling. Every element of the songs is there in plain sight, no dissembling sonic wizardry, just open, honest, power and passion. »What We Leave Behind« couldn’t be any other way. Completed by the evocative artwork of Redamaut (Perpetual Paradox, Mother Crone, Altar Of Moss etc) »What We Leave Behind« will be released on CD, cassette and digital formats by Grindscene Records, on October 2nd. Another essential tale in the unfolding chronicles of The Crawling…
“The EP is an acknowledgement that the past is behind us. We spend too long lamenting what has been, rather than being mindful of the present and the joy it can bring. Then, when we finally realise time has slipped away, we begin mourning that as well. The constant mourning of time is a sickness.” – Andy Clarke, The Crawling
Pre-order »What We Leave Behind« EP here:
thecrawlingband.bandcamp.com/album/what-we-leave-behind
Line up:
Andy Clarke – Guitars/Vocals
Adrien Crozet – Bass
Ant Deane – Drums
FFO: Swallow The Sun | Officium Triste | October Tide | Paradise Lost
Bojan Bidovc // music enthusiast, promoter, misanthrop and sometimes a journalist as well