Crypt Crawler: The Immortal Realm

Crypt Crawler has recently released their third full-length album entitled The Immortal Realm. The 5-piece hails from Western Australia and play a brand of death metal that fuses old-school death metal and modern elements in a very convincing and legitimate way.

The Old School Death metal (OSDM) renaissance has been in full swing for some time now, with a glut of predominantly American bands playing a style of death metal that is highly influenced by the early 90’s scene (eg. Tomb Mold, Skeletal Remains, Frozen Soul, Gatecreeper, Undeath et al). Crypt Crawler are very much peers with this scene (albeit from the other side of the world), playing a style that mixes both OSDM from the Florida & Swedish scenes from the early 90’s with a healthy smattering of more contemporary influences. The modern influences are especially noticeable in the vocals, where Marco Ieritano employs a wide variety of death metal growls and screams which is a refreshing change up from some OSDM which can often employ a single, monotonous guttural approach.

The Immortal Realm is a well put together album with noticeable attention to detail across every facet of the release. Starting with the striking artwork from Dan Goldsworthy, down to the sequencing of the 8 high quality tracks over a perfectly weighted ~33 min run time. There is no chance of getting listening fatigue here- it’s a concise and high quality album that captures my attention from start to finish. Whilst I really enjoy the band’s past releases I wouldn’t hesitate to say this is their best work to date. Those familiar with Crypt Crawler will notice some further development of the band’s sound on this release too. In addition to writing great death metal tracks with a good mix of intricate and straight up riffing, the band continue have clearly continued to develop their craft. I wouldn’t call this a progressive death metal album but there are some progressive elements in the mix - you can hear them stretch out and mix up their riffing more than they may have done in the past. The more prominent use of synths on this release also catches my attention. Crypt Crawler haven’t taken this addition as far as recent Blood Incantation albums (full scale Tangerine Dream worship), however the use of Synths is well considered and helps give the album a nice flow, breaking up the otherwise constant barrage of high quality death metal.

There isn’t a weak spot across the album, however if I had to pick some highlights I’d call out the opener / title track ‘The Immortal Realm’, and the double punch closing combination of the particularly brutal ‘Abhorrent Abominations’ and the epic closer ‘Gateway of Souls’. 'Gateway of Souls 'has an almost classic-era-Metallica-thrash-metal-anthem vibe to it in parts, such is the epic scale of the arrangement.

The album is an easy one to recommend, and an absolute no brainer for fans of Death, Bolt Thrower, Morbid Angel & Obituary.

Track Listing:
1. The Immortal Realm
2. Summary Execution
3. Forced Metamorphosis
4. Maze to Insanity
5. Higher Society
6. Shrine of Sacrifice
7. Abhorrent Abominations
8. Gateway of Souls

Added: September 16th 2024
Reviewer: Chris Reid
Score:
Related Link: Band @ Bandcamp
Hits: 397
Language: english

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