Crippled Black Phoenix The Wolf Changes Its Fur But Not Its Nature & Horrific Honorifics Number Two (2) CD Review

To celebrate their 20th anniversary, UK post-rock band Crippled Black Phoenix are releasing a two-part compilation that makes every effort to encapsulate the band’s extensive history and towering back catalog. I find it also is used as a testament of perseverance, especially that of band torchbearer, Justin Greaves who has seen it all and done it all through the long and storied history of the band.

The first chapter entitled ‘The Wolf Changes Its Fur But Not Its Nature’ delivers new versions of some of their earlier material such as “Goodnight, Europe (Pt2)” , “We Forgotten Who We Are” and“444”. The band plays off of some of their earlier tracks as previously they had recorded “Song for the Loved” and here we get the 14-plus minute odyssey “Song for the Unloved”. The same with the previously recorded “You Take the Devil Out Of Me” and now we see “You Put the Devil In Me”. Standout tracks here are “We Forgotten Who We Are”, “Song For the Unloved” and my personal favorite both in music and song title - “Blizzard of Horned Cats” which is a beautiful instrumental driven by a calm piano intro that builds up into an epic battle soundtrack.

The second part of this compilation, entitled ‘Horrific Honorifics Number Two (2)’, is the band’s second effort in paying tribute to some of their favorite artists and songs while infusing their dark and gloomy style into them. Not to be confused with the first version of this idea that came out back in 2017, this iteration sees the band take on eight new cover songs from artists such as Fugazi, Deep Purple, God and The Sensational Alex Harvey Band. With the songs and artists being so varied, it’s interesting to see the approach the band took to each song. Without question, the best efforts here are heard in “Hammer Song” by The Sensational Alex Harvey Band and the transfixing version of “Self Control” by Laura Branigan. But, if you want to get technical, it was first recorded by Raf and later the same year covered by Laura, which is the more well known version. Belinda Kordic’s vocal performance in addition to the song's more mysterious tone stands out like nothing else here. I have to say that their version of Fugazi’s “Blueprint” is also a standout and “When A Blind Man Cries” by Deep Purple is absolutely chilling.

~TJ