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CASKET GRINDER
Sepulchral Trip

Awakening (2022)
Rating: 7.5/10

This is some tasty death metal from a bunch that has been around since 2010, and it seems rather apt that the sophomore outing from this Colombian band should get a Halloween release.

Just like the last outing – Fall Into Dementia (2020) – this latest effort is very much serious, juggernaut death metal and comes with an impressive cover of the Pestilence number ‘Suspended Animation’.

Casket Grinder pretty much lives up to its name; heavyweight flurries hinting at the likes of Cannibal Corpse, Massacre, Deicide and Malevolent Creation, but with streaks of Slayer hidden within.

The band plays like a top tier act that has been around since the early 90s where intriguing suspenseful moments are entwined with melancholic sways and doomier leads. This is immediately apparent from opener ‘Cannibal Obsession’, but there’s always a barrage of blast beats just around the corner as the clan grills the listener with a batch of hefty, racing tunes – the result being a rather fulfilling and aggressive outburst.

The likes of ‘Wheels Of Convulsion’, ‘The Happening’ and ‘Celestial Devourment’ almost promise some sort of cosmic complexity, and while you get some interesting twists musically – particularly with the more jarring latter cut – it’s pretty much straight-forward death metal savagery for the most part.

‘Pestilent Casket’, ‘Conjuring Chaos’ and ‘Acid Storm’ feature substantial bass lines, stony percussion and raw, gnashing guitar work just to add extra beefy layers to the topping already provided by vocalist Daniel Pineda. Basically, if you like the old school American death metal style of hammering than I don’t see why you wouldn’t pick this up.

Neil Arnold

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