I haven’t been able to sit down and listen to Boston killers Krill's 3rd album A Distant Fist Unclenching since just before it came out back in February (through Steak Club in the UK/Europe - Exploding In Sound/Double Double Whammy had it out there in the US in time for Xmas last year). Not that listening to anything is hard per se, but with my sabbatical from the Sonic Masala website for a couple months I stayed clear of the emails and forgot to put this on the playlist. Now that I am back, I am free to wax lyrical about how great it is, a brooding, off-kilter rainbow-coloured gut punch. Starting with the schizophrenic 'Phantom' - a track that begins with a bustling gait before switching gears and direction two minutes out, wild frontman Jonah Furman's voice getting more unhinged in the higher octaves. It is understandable why there is mutual love for EIS stablemates Pile, what with their communal adherence to outre rhythms and suddenly serrated riffs, combined with lurid, at times gloriously indecipherable metaphors and euphemisms. There are elements of playfulness here that shines out from previous recordings - 'Torturer' is a great launchpad into this shift. It all hinges on the seven-minute 'Tiger' - that distant fist unclenches, the pain goes away, we breathe, we live on. There is a liquidity, an aural succour, to the flightiness and anxieties of the past. Furman may still find pain in internal torments, but Krill are learning to embrace the hurt.
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