Cryptorium strikes again.
After a debut album that was well-received by the Death Metal scene, Fabian Larsen (guitar/vocals), Knalle Arvidsson (bass/keyboards/vocals), Albin Holgersson (drums/vocals), and Ludvig Carman (guitar) signed with Transcending Obscurity Records for the release of their follow-up album, Through The Bowels Of Ceaseless Dissonance.
Knalle Arvidsson unfortunately passed away between the recording and the album’s release.
A particularly melancholic piano intro greets us on the opening track, but once the final mournful notes fade, the title track Through the Bowels of Ceaseless Dissonance takes us by surprise, delivering riff after riff of savage, uncompromising death metal. The band literally runs us over at full speed, using a solid rhythm section to make us bang our heads just like on Malodor, which follows hot on its heels and delivers an Old School approach that’s as furious as it is catchy – even before the vocals kick in. As soon as the growls return, the band strikes even harder and faster, mercilessly pounding us, especially during blast beats, and then the carnage continues with Rivers of Celestial Blood, maintaining a similarly savage tone. It’s worth noting, however, the extreme technicality in the leads, but the band gives us no respite as they launch into In Bitter Remorse, which certainly features slower passages but is far heavier, drawing on Doom/ Death, often returning to a more virulent intensity; but it’s ultimately with a putrid sample that our first chance to catch our breath comes to life, fittingly introducing the furious Revolting Obsession. The middle section of the track contrasts with a fresh dose of suffocating slowness, but the fury quickly reasserts itself, just as it does on Corpus Effigy, which hits us at full speed and once again showcases a stark contrast between the two extremes. No surprises here either for Concrete Interment, which stays true to the tradition now established by the musicians and focuses on no-frills violence, though it also offers a few macabre touches before Malignant Crucifixion takes its turn to assault us with its brutal old-school roots. Waves of riffs explode at regular intervals, leading us to Consumed by the Eternal Rot, the final track which is also the longest, and which has the subtlety to begin with a sampled vocal, followed by an impressive sound, only to shatter against our eardrums shortly thereafter, returning to Death Metal’s roots with unflinching brutality, and showing no hesitation in transforming that brutality into dissonance, then into silence.
With Through The Bowels Of Ceaseless Dissonance, Cryptorium delivers an album of pure Death Metal, whether in its savagery or its macabre tones. The band will delight fans of Old School sounds, and I hope to see them strike again very soon!
90/100
