THE HAXAN CLOAK - Excavation

Bobby Krlic's sophomore full-length as The Haxan Cloak (and debut for young-'n'-bleak English imprint Tri Angle) contains enough growling bass beds, spooky string samples and spacious, heaving beats to satiate anyone looking for another contemporary artist to add alongside such other doomy/dreadful electronic heavyweights as Ben Frost, Raime, Emptyset, and labelmate Vessel.

"Thematically, where The Haxan Cloak was a descent into darkness, Excavation represents the ascent into light that directly follows it. The differences between the two LPs run further than their mood and themes, however; for this second album, Krlic has flipped his approach to composition and sound design on its head. Where his debut was rooted in the raw, natural tones of classical instrumentation, its follow-up deals in electronic timbres and heavily processed effects. As such, Excavation shares many traits with its predecessor while still sounding like a unique proposition; here, Krlic makes no attempt to repeat the tricks of his debut, and creates a hugely worthy successor to it as a result." - XLR8R

"Krlic takes full advantage of the album form, often stretching his songs to more than ten minutes. The result is something truly narrative—this isn't the kind of record you'd play on shuffle. In the title track's two parts, we're taken through a sonorous tunnel only to be dumped into an empty pit of despair, all static and hissing hellmouths. With 'The Mirroring,' those dissociative drones collect themselves back into fire-and-brimstone techno." - Resident Advisor