lista zespołów Death Metal Crucifyre Infernal Earthly Divine

One of the bands that recently have their album released under Pulverised Records, Crucifyre plays Satanic death metal - evident by their overtly Satanic album titles such as "Born Again Satanist" and "Hail Satan". While most bands end up looking cheesy or pretentious when writing about Satanic themes, it is certainly interesting to see how Crucifyre brings in a breath of fresh air through their music.

As the opening track Born Again Satanist begins, the first thing that strikes the listener is the vocal style of Erik Tormentor. Instead of the usual guttural death growls, he chooses to utilise a style closer to thrash metal - half growl/half shout vocals - to good effect, since the lyrics that he spits out are still decipherable unlike most death metal vocalists. Other times though, he utilises a more gruff version, similar to Amon Amarth's Johan Hegg. The music also displays thrash influences such as on the solo towards the end of Born Again Satanist, when a Slayer-esque, reminiscent of Raining Blood's intro riff comes into the picture, complete with the harmonised guitar. The band also showcases their various influences, at times speeding up to breakneck speed but at times slowing down to a heavy chug, focussing on the heaviness and the atmosphere of the music instead.

The band's usage of sound effects and contrasts such as on Kiss the Goat provides a sufficiently haunting atmosphere, giving the listener what to expect as the climax builds up. Spoken vocals are also littered throughout the album, adding on to the already haunting and chilling atmosphere of the music. On the intro of Hellish Sacrifice, with an acoustic piano-backed track with female vocalists provide a good contrast, calm music pushing Satanic ideologies, while breaking the pace of the music, displays the ideas that Crucifyre has for their music. However, on songs such as ...Of Hell, the introduction provides a quirky moment, almost out of place from the chaos that occurs right after the intro.

Other weird moments are on tracks such as Hail Satan, where vocalist Erik goes "Fuck you! Hail Satan!" throughout the chorus, while anthemic, is personally one of the weakest tracks on the record as it feels as though the band has run out of lyrical ideas, having to return to the most basic (and almost-childish sounding) FUCK YOU, HAIL SATAN, as if discovering swearing for the first time. But certainly, if a fist-pumping song is what you want, then this song is definitely for you. However, judging from the other tracks the band definitely has the ability to write better songs and hence this could just be the anomaly.

One other thing that helped in the enjoyment of this album is that despite the death metal tag, the heaviness and the Satanism of the album, the music is surprisingly catchy, with melody included where it is required, such as on songs like Witch Hammer.

While I personally prefer that the interludes and the "softer" parts are reduced (since they break the flow and the tempo of the music), Infernal Earthly Divine is overall an enjoyable album.