Hate. There are some band names that, even if you don’t particularly feel enamoured by the look of the members or the apparent genre their album covers suggest, pure smash you in the face and demand that you give them a chance. The legacy of this revered Polish trio, now augmented by legendary sticksman Pavulon, ensures that avid interest is guaranteed.
The intro to their ninth full-length Crvsade:Zero (Napalm) is downright chilling, evoking the cold, haunted ruins of a trailer to the last Harry Potter film. The ensuing ‘Lord, Make Me an Instrument of Thy Wrath!‘, with its howling leadplay, is almost Doom-laden in its heavy misery yet, while still punishing with its resonant power, warns little of the savagery to come. ‘Death Liberator’s slow, deliberate pounding is graced by a vocal roar epitomising the most lascivious of demons, creating the fetid atmosphere you’d expect. Despite the deathly feel, however, the initial pace is more portentous, save for the rapid drumming of the inventive Pavulon, the track crawling into the psyche whilst the evil coils around the spinal cord.
The sense of drama is palpable, given added threat by sole surviving founder member Adam the First Sinner‘s beefy rasp and, while speed is injected via the Blackened extremity of ‘Leviathan’, that ominous feel of violent deliberation swells through the body of the track. What’s really surprising is that there’s a healthy dollop of real emotion here too, the otherwise brooding and threatening ‘Valley of Darkness’ allowing Adam to exude his pain-wracked soul with tortured roars and wonderfully emotive leadplay.
A huge production gives the album an added fullness and some may argue it’s too clean as a result, but the terror induced by that throat and the oppressive atmospheres surrounding it ensure there’s serious punch here. The untrammelled onslaught of the title track, displaying the hulking torment of a caged monster; the sinister oppression of ‘Valley…’; and the mashing brutality of ‘Dawn of War’; show everything about that’s delightful about this pummeling brute of an album: it’s ferocious, bloody scary, and hefty to boot. Age doth not weary them…
8.0/10
PAUL QUINN