CEMETERY URN
Cemetery Urn
Hells Headbangers (2017)
Rating: 8/10
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Look beyond the at times clicky drum sound and you’ll enjoy this feast of barking Australian death metal. Cemetery Urn are very much of a mid-to-late 90s death metal design and their latest album is, thankfully, littered with nods to earlier times too when the genre was king.
This self-titled outing is the third release from this combo which formed in 2006, although it’s been seven years since the last opus, 2010’s The Conquered Are Burned. With this new release we get aggressive, guttural death metal that mixes slower, catchier tempos with faster, belligerent flecks. Sure, it’s rather bog-standard at times, but still immensely enjoyable when one considers how stale the scene has become and one prone to repetition.
There’s nothing on offer here that you haven’t heard before, but if you enjoy the likes of Suffocation, Immolation, Cannibal Corpse and everything in-between then Cemetery Urn’s ten-track platter is for you. For 40 minutes you’ll be battered, bruised and flayed by a straight-forward yet bellowing brand of savage metal. There are hints of Napalm Death (circa Harmony Corruption) here, strains of Bolt Thrower there, and fronted by the chesty vocal exploits of new vocalist Chris Volcano who brings extra menace and grating prowess to proceedings. The frills may not come thick and fast, but the weight does, built upon a driving foundation of Matt Crossingham’s formidable percussion and the twin guitar barrage of Dan Maccioni and Andrew Gillon. The latter also played bass on the album.
Each track presents itself as a solid and extremely accessible lump of gnarly death metal, which opens its account with the dark, brooding hammer that is ‘The Deepest Of Graves’. The track is a pounding assault that for just under four-minutes is unrelenting; a driving, thrashing death metal riot of barking vocals and occasional slower trudges. From here on the album continues in that path. It’s not rocket science but it is death metal that is above all punishing, just how it should be.
‘A Requiem For Servants Aflame’ again brings that blistering pace. But let us not forget that this is a band that was formed out of veteran Aussie acts such as Bestial Warlust, Corpse Molestation and Abominator. So we’re not talking about a gang of great pretenders here, but stalwarts in their field who are more than capable of taking you down with one walloping drum roll, one rumbling bass pluck, and two deadly axe attacks to the skull.
‘Weakened Mortals Bleed’ is again unforgiving. The slow, suspenseful introduction drags into the murk before the band executes its signature move; drums roll as the guitars seethe and then the fury emerges – the combo again sprinting and gnashing feverishly in true old school fashion.
Between the wall of speed there is a jarring rhythm and occasional percussive tweaks, but it’s still one big battering ram. And as the likes of ‘The Sickening Sect’, ‘Doomed In Conterminous Decay’, ‘Hemlock Transfusion’ and ‘A Hex Upon Elitist Dynasties’, I’m constantly reminded of a less fetid Bolt Thrower – the opening strains of ‘Misshapen Affliction’ ramming this detail home before Chris Volcano once again burps out another chunk of flesh.
One can’t argue with the devastation left in the wake of Cemetery Urn, and while this may not be an album to ravage the genre and turn it on its head, fans of old school aesthetics and later strains of unrelenting aggression will no doubt have much to chew on here.
Neil Arnold
