By: Mark Ambrose
Album Type: EP
Date Released: 28/04/2017
Label: Southern Lord
Just like Carcass, the guys in Crypt Rot are able to fuse stomach
churning lyrics with memorable hooks. In
a mere twenty minutes, Crypt Rot manage to express their love of classic death
metal, while embracing the disparate influences that may ultimately set them
apart and above their peers.
“Embryonic Devils” DD//LP track
listing
1. Segue
2. Chapters of Torment
3. Scaphist Waste
4. Coffin Birth: Postmortal Fetal Extrusion
5. Pit of Morbidity
6. Internal Organ Feast
The Review
Ohio is a strange place. Ostensibly along the northern border of the
United States, I’ve driven through it many times to see arrays of Confederate
flags, pro-union bumper stickers, heard speakers blasting underground hip hop
or seen punishing anarcho-punk shows in squalid basements. Part of the so-called “flyover country”, it
sits as a crossroads of urban and rural cultures. Like many of these liminal spaces, it churns
out fucked up outsider art at an alarming rate.
Take, for instance, Ohio’s Crypt Rot and their debut EP, “Embryonic Devils”.
Ostensibly a death metal band featuring members of Homewrecker
and Scorched, Crypt Rot
is simultaneously nostalgic for a simpler era of early death metal and an
exercise in genre cherry picking.
Opening track “Chapters of
Torment” fuses chaotic, borderline thrash riffing with hardcore breakdowns
before culminating in ethereal, choral vocals that evoke the Fabrio Frizzi
scores of Italian splatter classics. “Scaphist Waste” ups the energy, pushing
the limits of Izzi’s double bass assault, while “Coffin Birth: Postmortal Fetal Extrusion” highlights the melodic
riffing of Sposito and DeDedemonic – like Carcass, the guys in Crypt Rot are able to fuse stomach churning lyrics with
memorable hooks.
Yet it’s the latter half of the record, “Pit of Morbidity” and “Internal Organ Feast”, that got me most
excited for Crypt Rot’s future. Segueing from death metal riffs/growls to
eerie acoustic guitars and Dioneff’s vocals, I was once again thinking of cult
films like Just Before Dawn or The Burning, where the most pastoral moments
often presage the most horrific events. There
are scads of bands churning out extreme metal, but few can pull of the tonal or
genre shifts and maintain atmospheric consistency. In a mere twenty minutes, Crypt Rot manage to express their love of classic death
metal, while embracing the disparate influences that may ultimately set them
apart and above their peers; it would be thrilling to see this play out across
a future full length. Until then, I’ll
keep my eyes firmly set towards the rotted heartland, to see what fresh horrors
Crypt Rot can summon next.
“Embryonic Devils” is
available here
