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CYSTIC
Palace Of Shadows

Chaos (2023)
Rating: 8.5/10

Just by gazing at the cover art of this debut album from Seattle, Washington-based outfit Cystic, one can smell the salty air as grey, eroded skulls wash up on the gloomy shore. Wisps of haunting mists, a distant reek of dampness suddenly and unexpectedly blown away by the live feel of this organic death metal outing from a band that isn’t afraid to reveal its hardcore roots.

I sort of anticipated another of those gluey, doomy death metal albums, but this thing has a real vicious streak. After a short trickling and then what seems to be a melodic muse we get struck by a sniping, thrashing quality spiked by equally scathing vocals. Not strictly death metal then as ‘Pestilential Throne’ zips and hammers as if it was recorded in the garage of the old house next door. The drummer is obviously a lunatic out on day release because he strikes those cymbals as if reminiscing about the last victim he battered to death.

Throw this on an old cassette back in 1991 and you’ve got yourself a morbid and downright earthen demo that one moment miserably slumbers like Autopsy at their murkiest, the next it’s a venomous, primordial ooze and clatter. All of these qualities exist within the dire folds of the morbid ‘Palace Of Shadows And Blood’ which is somewhat doom ridden, yet somehow punky in its lo-fi setting of sunken, squelching graves sinking into peat bogs and foggy mire. Meanwhile, the despondent rattle of ‘Duly Drowned’ simply aids the process of lung capitulation by way of mould spores as again we get spattered by the cement slurry and harsher snaps.

Maybe it is that dank cover art but I just can’t help but envisage ashen bones entangled with seaweed to the soundtrack of rolling grey waves and pallid thundery skies. It doesn’t matter how fast a tirade ‘Nebilous Legion (Of The Sombre Sea)’ is, it just stinks of black mould; utterly bleak in its stark yet raw guitar frenzy and as equally denuded with its bass and drum combo.

There are no frills here, just desolate strands of chaos. This is austere death metal, and ‘Core Of The Maelström’ sums up such dismal echoes, again channelling the dreary soul of Autopsy. Forget the fact this heap of muck hails from Seattle, such drab drudgery belongs to the battered British coastlines of eroded cliffs, snagging rocks and lost, drowned souls.

Neil Arnold

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