Band:	Knoll
Album:	As Spoken
Style:	Mathcore, Grindcore
Release date:	January 2024

01. As Spoken
02. Offering
03. Wept Fountain
04. Revile Of Light
05. Mereward
06. Guardian Bind
07. Unto Viewing
08. Portrait
09. Utterance
10. Fettered Oath
11. Shall It Be

‘Funeral grind’: that’s the term that Knoll use to describe the horrifying sound that they have conjured up on As Spoken. The album doesn’t deliver on the seemingly impossible promise of combining grindcore and funeral doom, but it is a multifaceted record that offers unsettling eeriness alongside violent malevolence.

Knoll announced themselves in style with 2021 full-length debut Interstice, which featured mixing and artwork credits for names as illustrious as Kurt Ballou and Ethan McCarthy, respectively. After a split later that year with fellow Tennesseans Autolith (who, to my chagrin, still haven’t released anything since, although they might FINALLY be close to putting something new out), they’ve produced first Metempiric and now As Spoken. Both of their prior releases did a good job of capturing my attention in spite of my general disinterest towards grindcore, but this third release sees the group rising to a whole other level.

Knoll’s previous releases have been categorized in some circles as ‘mathgrind’; there is some degree of mathy complexity here, but the overwhelming sound that comes to define this record instrumentally is the harsh, punishing dissonance of the guitarwork pretty much throughout. As Spoken was released but a week after another disso/deathgrind release in the form of Cerebral Purgatory by Resin Tomb, but this album is a whole different kettle of fish; that harsh dissonance veers closer towards the insanity of acts such as Portal. When combined with the sickening high-pitched shrieked vocal style employed by vocalist Jamie Eubanks and the cacophonic blasting percussion, it’s a sound that is misanthropic and confrontational.

The opening title track offers plenty of such violence, with some frantic, chaotic guitar runs amidst the hyperspeed instrumentation; however, Knoll are frequently eager to slow things down across the album, and a drop in the drum speed turns the guitar riffs from gnarly to putrid. Although near every song features at least some outburst of rapid-fire obliteration, almost none of them sustain that full-pelt abrasion throughout (the absolutely demented “Fettered Oath” notwithstanding), and shorter cuts such as “Offering” and “Wept Fountain” fluctuate between venomous sonic chaos and meaner trudging.

As the record proceeds, Knoll bring some more subtle variety into the composition. After a bludgeoning opening couple of minutes, “Revile Of Light” settles down into a punishing crawl; the guitars churn relentlessly away with dissonant tremolos and Eubanks releases more pained shrieks, but the erratic double bass drum patterns and steady kit rhythm make it a harrowing slog, particularly as an unexpected and oddball trumpet cameo adds to the weirdness. The closing moments descend into creepy dark ambience, something that is explored more fully on the insidious “Utterance”, a track shaped by demonic vocal utterances above a bleak ambient backdrop.

The one last standout track on the record is “Portrait”, which arguably is the closest that Knoll get to something that could be conceptualized as ‘funeral grind’. Across its grim 5-minute runtime, the song punctuates a slow crawl of steady percussion and buzzing guitar with brutal outbursts of violent sonic chaos, which turn increasingly more demented until the song descends into harrowing blackened doom. As much as the prolific outbursts of dissonant grind across As Spoken really challenge listeners, it is this combination of tempos and approaches on “Portrait” that accomplishes the most unsettling and bleak vision encountered on the album.

2023 was a really strong year for grindcore in terms of quality and variety, and within the first month of January, there have already been two standout releases in and on the confines of the genre from Resin Tomb and now Knoll. Whatever anyone else comes out with this year, they’ll do well to produce anything as sickening and harrowing as As Spoken.