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6.0
- Band:
CRANIAL DISORDER - Duration: 00:28:45
- Available from: 10/07/2024
- Label:
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Lethal Scissor Records
Streaming not yet available
We haven’t even had time to leave the Indonesian jungles visited thanks to “Demonic Paradise”, the second full-length by Anthropophagus Depravity published by Comatose Music last June 21st, that the South-East Asian country has grabbed us again for a new album. tour de force based on tight and guttural death metal.
As mentioned several times, there is a scene in those parts that has really taken to heart the ‘brutal’ genre that was prevalent in the United States and Europe in the late 90s/early 2000s (Deeds of Flesh, Disavowed, Disgorge, Pyaemia, Sarcolytic, etc.), and coming across a debut band dedicated to the aforementioned type of sound is anything but an exception or an impossible feat, with groups of musicians – often still of school age – who cooperate and support each other in order to keep the archipelago’s underground alive.
From the Western Sunda Islands, intercepted by our own Lethal Scissor Records after a promo released in 2022, Cranial Disorder throw us a half hour of US death metal with livid tones and suffocating atmospheres, but which at the same time – thanks to a groovy vein borrowed from the likes of Dying Fetus and Vomit the Soul – manages to preserve its own sense of rhythm and a slightly more streamlined pace than that of other similar abominations. Music that, it goes without saying, acts and moves within a very narrow perimeter, the metabolization of which must start from the assumption that there will be no reworkings of the script or stylistic flashes worthy of the name, elements that – rather – will be replaced by an approach worthy of the most square defenders and disinterested in external influences.
A bit like what happens in many records of the so-called war metal genre, “Congenital Depravity” has its reference models well in mind (also in terms of artwork, production, titles, etc.), and does not move from there, respecting literally the clichés that the public of enthusiasts usually expect from a release of this kind. In a context of this type, it is therefore essential that the songwriting stands out for its authority and fluidity, and in this regard we must say that, although the ensemble presents itself in a refined and professional way, the quartet has not yet reached the standards of the aforementioned compatriots at the opening. The tracklist doesn’t last long, the technique is remarkable and the riffs are not lacking, but the ingenuity in assembling the various parts – as well as the variety of rhythmic and guitar solutions – is not exactly phenomenal, which leads the songs to merge into a discrete flow but substantially free of peaks.
Nothing unforgivable, however: Cranial Disorder are young, and if they don’t lack the desire to learn and test themselves, perhaps observing the examples of the local circuit, growth from a writing point of view will be practically a given. For now, we recommend its truculent deeds only to true maniacs in the sector.
