Cerekloth was a name that I’d seen banded about quite a bit a few years back. The Danes gained some good interest in their art, thanks in particular to their two EPs “Pandemonium Prayers” and “Halo of Syringes”. Other than those short releases, their “From Morphing Dust to Festering Slime” demo had been the only other thing they’d released since forming back in 2008… that is until now. I was familiar only with their “Halo of Syringes” EP, which at 3 songs and just over 13 minutes, did indeed make me hanker for more – if not only in morbid curiosity to see if they could pull it off again but for an albums worth of material. A lot of people never thought this debut album would see the light of day, such has been the feverish interest in certain corners and the small amount of high quality tasters so far. But here we have it – ‘In The Midst Of Life, We Are In Death’ – the main event. Is it as good as expected? Well… read on!
Opener ‘Praeludium + Born of the Void’ starts off with an eerie slow riff, with a bristly shuffle to it, jarring notes echoing out amongst the crunchy power chords all building into a repetitive verse structure which whilst simplistic, pours atmosphere with a maelstrom of churning chugs and deep growling. Simply said, Cerekloth pummel you with crude, yet oh-so-enjoyable death metal. There is no outlandish behaviour here, widdle-de-dee soloing, or technical 400bpm drum solos – just a tectonic plate-like musical vice which slowly compresses your skull into freshly ground brain porridge. The re-recorded EP track ‘Halo of Syringes’ makes a re-appearance in a slightly more polished form from what I remember, but featuring all the morose, black metal styled discordance and serrated steel grating low fret power chords that sucked me down into Hades the first time around, allowing me to revisit the familiar hellish stamping ground afresh once more. Perhaps it’s the familiarity (in fact, almost certainly so), but this is still the stand out track on offer here. The rest of the material doesn’t slouch in the quality department though. Almost constantly relying on a slow, crawling doom/death pace for their work, you can be figuratively drowning in faeces one moment (‘Nest of Disease’), or crawling through broken glass the next (’Mesmerizing Holy Death’) – there’s not much let up from their Incantation-gone-wrong vibe. But it’s the bands ace card, so why not constantly play it? It fucking rocks after all. Album closer ‘The Reapers Instant Is Our Eternity’ even has a building melody which owes heavily to the 28 Days Later theme song, with a chilling 4 note lick repeating over shifting chord patterns… and then before you know it, you’re pressing play for another run through of the album.
These guys can do so much with very little. They create a filthy musical miasma which hangs like a black fog, choking and claustrophobic, from a 4 chord chorus topped with the most basic of guitar refrains over the top, and well – it just works. They capture unwholesome in musical form. If you could see the musical notes pouring like sewage from your speakers, they’d be beset with festering boils and giant gnarly fucking locusts. Shambling, twitching and pouring with disease, Cerekloth have finally popped their cherry with a full length, and it’s everything I expected it to be.
(8/10 Lars Christiansen)
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