The roots of Chthonic Cult lay in both Berlin and Wroclaw, but those are merely earthly bindings, for the all-enveloping soundworld of the band’s debut album, I Am the Scourge of Eternity, resolutely laid in the Beyond. Released in 2015 by Iron Bonehead, Chthonic Cult‘s first public work comprised four monolithic tracks in a soul-draining 47 minutes. An orgiastic feast for the ears as well as eyes, drawing together bulldozing black metal, bestial death metal, and smokestacked doom metal into a hypnotizing whole, I Am the Scourge of Eternity was celebrated across the underground, all before Chthonic Cult seemingly returned to the grave.
But alas, “seemingly,” for they arrive seven years later into a worse world with Become Seekers for Death. Aptly titled, Become Seekers for Death is the sound of Chthonic Cult diving deep into the realm of sheer and total DEATH METAL, torching its parameters, and rearranging the ashes into their own twisted design. Indeed, the band’s ways and means here are fiercely focused and fine-tuned into the spectrum of crushing-yet-classy Metal of Death: power and professionalism are the watchwords here, and yet for however more “approachable” Chthonic Cult may appear to be, the resultant conflagration is actually more potent, and startlingly so. As such, the 40-minute album is judiciously sliced into eight track-sized chunks, making their attack more compact and concise. Still, within their blackened death bestiality-unto-bulldozing reveals a similarly vortextural maw like its towering predecessor – but, by comparison, perhaps Become Seekers for Death is the rotten, rippling soil beneath that tower. Less “head music,” then, as full-body music…and that body is summarily CRUSHED.
I believe that the band’s sound is an epic mix of extreme metal between black metal, death metal, doom and thrash. the guitars are dramatic and the drums are deafening. A mix of the 90’s and doom metal. A mixture of Belphegor and Morbid Angel without guilt. intense and with an interesting and incandescent primordial flame. Recommended for the most eclectic and for the souls who wander through other styles of extreme metal without guilt.
“Blackened death metal” may be a dicey and oft-misleading term, but there’s still stern adepts drawing from the wells of the ancients in these increasingly modern times. Chthonic Cult return when the fates deemed it right, and from beyond the veil did they bring back Become Seekers for Death.
MORE INFO:
www.facebook.com/chthonic.cult
www.putridcult.pl
www.facebook.com/PutridCult
www.putridcultproductions.bandcamp.com
