Cult Of Endtime was formed from the ashes of death/thrash outfit Discard in 2010. With two demos behind them so far, the Finns have at last completed their debut album for Svart Records; an record which their label describes as being “like something one would see circulating in the tape trading circles of the early 90s”. Given the rich heritage of their native land’s death metal which, more often than not, has plummeted the genre into ever darker recesses of obscurity, COE state honestly that they are not here to reinvent things. As true as this may be, they still deliver misery without reprieve.
The speed on opener ‘A Vast Cosmic Horror’ is a little deceptive early on as acrid riffs and a number of subterranean, thudding blasts hammer out. There’s even somewhat of a porcine vocal squeal, more associated with brutal death metal within it. However, exposure to what COE is all about isn’t long in coming as the music settles into a moribund form, slowly and methodically crawling along. Incorporating the odd stutter or disconcerting aside, death-doom is the name of the game. What initially struck me about the album on the first few listens was that whopping drum sound, especially when the kick drums operate in unison, seemingly to signal rapture. But equally, there are the riffs. While on the surface they appear to deviate little, in fact they move quite subtly – one moment grooving (ever so slightly), the next, breaking down into indescribably bleak realms.
There are of course a few deviations which you can’t avoid though. For all its chasmic, oppressive doom overtones, ‘The Colossus Fell’ suddenly hits the listener in the face with a full on charge, while on ‘Gnostic Haeresis’, the initial melodic shades put a slightly different slant on the band’s formula. Interestingly, the more I’ve listened to ‘In Charnel Lights’, the more that elements of the sound have come to remind me of Nile (if they abandoned their technicality and hyper-speed in favour of death-doom, naturally). But ‘subtle’ is really the key word in terms of how these Finns go about deconstructing the listener’s faith over forty-three punishing minutes. And perhaps no moment exemplifies this better than the end part of ‘Funeral Voyagers’ – throughout which there has been no sign of light or hope, only for a calculated, mockingly strummed passage to close it out.
While adjectives such as ‘morbid’ and ‘inescapable’ sum up ‘In Charnel Lights’, there are also some very cool textures of sound spread across its black expanse. Likewise, while it’s far from being the most technically or stylistically challenging album you’ll come across, there is a lot going on; certainly more than cursory listens will reveal. Perhaps the one minor complaint I have is that a few more of those devastating blast-beats would have been nice. But as is, COE have delivered a debut which ticks all the right boxes and for me, serves as a neat, more monotone counterpart to fellow countrymen Vainaja’s ‘Kadotetut’.
(8/10 Jamie)
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