Artist: Cruxifiction
Title: The Coming
Type: Album
Label: De Tenebrarum Principio
There’s very much an old school feel about this uncompromising Black Metal from French band Cruxifiction. The theme here is wholly anti-Christian. The music is brutal and covered with frost but although coming from a dark base, it’s quite fluid. You couldn’t really describe it as “pleasant” because rasping, aggressive Black Metal could not be that but like Immortal, it has a captivating and mobile quality. To give it that “old school” flavour, the guitar sound is impressively deep and murky.
The latter part of “Death is the Only Way” gives us a rare acoustic, Opeth-type passage but as if to make amends, “Haunting Hypocrisy” comes back to us faster and more furious than ever, as if it were delivered direct from Hell. There is a good guitar solo towards the end and there is a majestic section before that, but I felt that even by this stage, the third track, that it was all going through the motions. My fears were confirmed on the next two dark, sinister but unmemorable tracks. The tone is steady. It’s smoother than Marduk but along those lines. This, however, is Black Metal background music. I did like the title track “The Coming” which followed. It is more venomous and has the violent pace of anti war-mongering. It’s threatening, more bombastic and we hear children crying in the background in recognition of the horror. Whilst “The Coming” is cutting, the next and final track “The New Messiah”, a piece of old school Death Metal this time, is pedestrian.
Cruxifiction’s label De Tenebrarum Principio is devoted to the development of Black Metal and looks to have some very interesting bands from the genre. Unfortunately I wasn’t overwhelmed by “The Coming”. The anti-religious theme alone was not enough to fire me up. In fact although I cannot deny this is genuine Black Metal with Death Metal influences, for me the fire barely started to burn.
http://www.myspace.com/cruxifiction666
http://www.atmf.net/de-tenebrarum-principio-2/de-tenebrarum-principio
Andrew Doherty
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