Cruciamentum: Charnel Passages (2015)

One of my favorite things about attending concerts is the possibility of discovering new bands.  There have been a couple of concerts this year that have been helpful in that respect.  The UADA concert featured Wormwitch and Cloak, both of which were extremely impressive.  And when I saw The Chasm, the opening bands were Infernal Conjuration and Cruciamentum.  I actually placed an order for this album during the Cruciamentum performance.  That is how impressive they were.

Cruciamentum is a U.K.-based death metal band whose sound is rooted in old-school occult death metal bands like Incantation, Immolation and Angelcorpse with a little bit of Swedish death metal thrown in for good measure, all done with a modern flair.  The songs are mostly on the lengthy side, with progressive song structures and grinding riffs that envelop the listener.  The band is technical, yet dark and malevolent.  The band utilizes blasting double bass drumming and blazing guitar leads. 

The one criticism I have about the album is a little nitpicky.  The songs do not vary a whole lot and tend to run together.  The tempo does not change a whole lot and the riffs tend to be very similar to those in other songs.  The other side of this is that the album works much better as a whole rather than a collection of songs. 

This is Cruciamentum's first full-length album and the band has developed a large following in the metal underground, and for good reason.  This is a damn impressive album and proof that there is still some great modern death metal.