Band's List Metalcore Chronic Xorn Death.Destruction.Sermon

One of the uprising Indian metalcore/death metallers Chronic Xorn is finally out with their debut Death Destruction Sermon EP. The band had already gathered quite a fan following by playing in the local & regional gigs even before the release of the EP.

Death Destruction Sermon features 6 original tracks.The intro "Psychic Catastrophe" is bound to take the listener by surprise. Its melancholic, with some good use of synths add a black metal-ish feel to the track. Similar to Heaven Shall Burn's Antigone intro track in concept, the track successfully disguises the album & leave the listener wandering. However, considering its an EP and not a full-length album, the track could have been safely omitted.

The brutality begins with the next track "Afraid of the Unseen", featuring some heavy double-bass action & growls, combined with some melodious riffs. Breakdowns become more prominent from "The Funeral Song" onwards. It infuses a brilliant pig squeal growl towards the end along with some kick-ass death metal riffs & distortions which takes the song to a whole new level.

The title track "Death Destruction Sermon" & "Necropolis" are the stand-outs of the EP. The title track is filled to the brim with some neck-breaking headbanging moments. A brilliant solo followed by Suvam's clean vocal unmistakeably increases the depth of the song. Necropolis blasts off with a catchy,melodic riff and some heavy drumming. Another pig-squeal growl, mixed with a couple of breakdowns & a memorable solo towards the end simply makes it a highly-recommended CX track.The outro track, "My Little Obsession" breaks all barriers. Its more aggressive,and its CX's last attempt to break your neck, atleast for now. The breakdowns are more powerful and it clearly shows that CX has put every inch of their musical skill in these last 3 tracks. The last song more than makes up for the loose intro track.

The recording was good & polished, if not excellent. The drums needed to be slightly more audible. The bass guitar wasn't heard distinctively either. Chronic Xorn's music can be best defined as metalcore fused with melodic solos and death metal elements. It is this sound that makes CX so different from other conventional metalcore bands. The EP just pushed up the levels for the band and its the future full-length album that we all sought after.

How many metal bands from India do you know? I guess the answer wouldn’t be many, if at least any. But Chronic Xorn is one that should be known far abroad. In countries that aren’t very popular for extreme music genre is very hard to stand out in crowd and become known by public, which may have been a very good motivation for this metalcore band.

The very first for metalcore bands unusual thing in this album is the intro Psychic Catastrophe that by its melancholic, melodic sound almost misled me and almost made me wonder if I was listening to what I was supposed to listen to or if it is beginning of some doom metal album. For all unbelievers who take all –core genres just as a bunch of crap from people who don’t have any idea about what a melody is this should be a proof that they are anything but right.

The following Afraid of the Unseen is a classic metalcore song, with a great catchy melody and well skilled guitar playing. From the whole album this one is my favourite, even though it would be highly unfair to tell that the rest of the album is worse. More true would be to tell that this one is the most likeable.

The Funeral Song is much more headbanging suitable and striking, even including a dramatic pause and I can honestly imagine this song being played live in front of a huge public. And as if getting harder and more extreme with every song, Death Destruction Sermon as a true title song stands out more, especially thanks to the clear vocals. In my view not having them there wouldn’t do any harm since they sound a little too much melodramatically and whiny.

Neropolis gets pretty much back into the usual strike with all the growl, screaming, whispering and shouting and actually does it very well. The guitar solo comes to the right time and isn’t annoyingly long as many bands sometimes tend to do so the sound loses nothing of its glibness. And luckily there’s nothing bad I could say about My Little Obsession, the final track of this precious piece of work. And there is no doubt that this whole album has a great potential to become a little obsession to many, many fans in India as well as in the rest of the world, just to everyone who can recognize what is good.

This piece of work really showed that even my most optimistic expectations weren’t enough. This band and especially this album really deserves to be known and if there is any chance to see this metal smash live, I can promise I’ll be there.