Cratophane – Exode
Release Date: 3rd October 2025
Label: I, Voidhanger Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Instrumental, Post-Metal, Doom, Groove, Prog, Krautrock.
FFO: Russian Circles, Astrosaur, Pelican, Oslo Tapes, WuW.
Review By: John Newlands
Cratophane are an instrumental three-piece heralding from Paris, France. They are back with their sophomore album Exode which is a fully instrumental work that blends several genres including post metal, doom, noise rock and zeuhl-style progressive music, mainly established by French band Magma in the early 1970s.
The album is mainly inspired by the worlds of science fiction comics (all of which I must admit to never having heard of) and the band state that their music aims to be a soundtrack to some of these works. Even the cover art for Exode is taken from a graphic novel called Negalyod by Vincent Perriot, yet another comic I have never heard of but is apparently about a dinosaur shepherd on a planet where dinosaurs roam free and cities float in the sky. As a big sci-fi fan, I think this sounds cool and will need to check it out!
But anyway, what does Exode sound like? That’s honestly quite a tricky one to describe, but I will try my best.
Imagine a straight-up regular instrumental post-metal band, such as Russian Circles, Pelican or the likes went on a DMT trip and decided to take a cheeky wee tab of acid as a chaser. They are shit-faced, yet somehow still completely in control of what they are doing and everything going on around them. Then you might start to get towards Cratophane’s sound.
Don’t get me wrong, there is a level of madness here, but it’s controlled in a way that it is palatable and enjoyable. The band always seem to know to not take things too far off-piste and always pull back to the familiar riff or motif that they have set out earlier in a track.
The band really know how to set up a nice hook or riff to catch the listeners attention. Tacks like Eustice has a really groovy, funk feel to the bassline or the catchy melody of Fleur De Peau. It’s little things like this that the band do throughout the album that really make it an interesting listen.
Along with the exemplary bass, there is some synth work throughout the release that really compliments the other instrumentation and at points I found myself wondering, how can a three-piece pull this off in a live setting? It would be interesting to find out one day. The guys also have a great understanding of texture and layering instrumentation to really lay down some great head banging heavy riffs.
Production here is great, it’s got a warmth to it which I really like, the bass is a real stand out along with the synth work – which actually reminded me of a psychedelic, krautrock Italian band called Oslo Tapes.
If I were to be very critical, I would say that some of the tracks here are a little long. I am not shy of longer tracks, in-fact many of my favorite artists have very long songs, however, here, I sometimes found myself being a little distracted or zoning out.
An example of this would be the end of track four, Samaris. It’s a great track with a really cool super heavy layered riff that just gets heavier and heavier and heavier as the track progresses, but then at the end a kind of doomy guitar riff drones and slowly progresses over the space of 2mins and I didn’t feel it added anything. I’d have much preferred if the track was a bit shorter, but I’m sure another listener would argue that I’m being an idiot. Perhaps I am.
All in all, this is a really solid release from Cratophane, there is loads here to enjoy if you are into instrumental metal with a bit of a twist. Go give it a spin.
(4 / 5)
