Craft
- Story by J. Bennett
Swedish black metal mongers Craft aren't sure where to stick it
There’s something about calling your album Fuck the Universe that precludes all subsequent qualification. Fuck the Universe (Except for My Mum) or Fuck the Universe Gently and Don’t Skimp on the Lube just doesn’t have the same kind of scorched-anus ring to it. Craft guitarist Joakim Karlsson would the be the first to admit this, which is probably why he and his mononymous bandmates—vocalist Nox, bassist/guitarist John, and drummer Daniel—decided not to call their third full-length Fuck the Universe, But Leave Us Alone. “The complete destruction of the universe disallows individual flesh piles to be excluded from total destruction, and we know that,” Karlsson acquiesces via e-mail from his home in Sweden. “The flesh is ultimately not important, anyway.”
Which is easy to say when one still has theirs. Luckily, Craft’s ferocious black metal maelstrom bedims their hollow exhortations for cosmic holocaust. Like the band’s previous two full-lengths—Terror Propaganda and Total Soul Rape (both released domestically on Moribund)—Fuck the Universe (which Southern Lord licensed from Sweden’s Carnal Records) is less concerned with unending atmospheric
grimness than with cold, merciless riffery. “A good riff is much more interesting than just a simple series of chord changes on some grind,” Karlsson says. “We wouldn’t get much of a challenge from doing that type of black metal. It’s more metal with real riffs, basically.”
Promotional materials for Fuck the Universe bill the album as Craft’s swansong, but Karlsson says that’s no longer the case. “We never really broke up; we just said we would put things on hold until Craft worked like a band again,” he explains. “We have, however, resolved the issue now. Daniel is no longer in the band, and [we’re] going to continue without a drummer. The drumming will be handled by session drummers or something from now on, because we don’t want any more members in Craft.”
The question remains: does Craft distinguish those who deserve a proverbial cornholing from those who don’t by whether or not the person likes the band’s music? “Liking our music has got nothing to do with it at all,” Karlsson says, completely missing (or more likely ignoring) the joke. “It’s undiscriminating hate, and we talk mainly about the universe as a whole, and the inferior and pointless construction that it is. Humanity is high on our lists, of course, but it isn’t a critical issue.” But just like the US government, the band doesn’t have much of a battle plan. Given the opportunity to fuck the universe, Karlsson admits he’s unsure where Craft would insert its collective phallus first. “It is difficult to say where we would like to start, since it would all have to go in the end,” he says, “but the partisans of white-light religions would be a strategically good place to start, as it would make the transition easier.”
