Celebrant
Spawn Of Chaos
7.1
So Celebrant are from Belgium and play the expected down tuned chunky death metal as played by the like their country mates and much of the of Shiver Records roster (Battalion, Moker, Fleshmould, Welkin, Ordeal, Neverlight Horizon, etc) but throw in a brutal US sense of pacing and savagery, making for a very competent death metal album.
First off, the guitar tone on Spawn of Chaos just crushes. It’s a mix of murky, muddy Immolation, Stockholm buzz and innate Belgian chunk. Then throw in the deep, layered Glen Benton-ish bellow of Pier Fieddelaers on top of the almost programmed precision of drummer Mark Van Develde (no longer in the band) and the album's almost merciless pace gives this thing a back bone like a mechanical bull and a very surprising band that I was not familiar with up until now.
Of course, that being said, the album does have its flaws in that it has an almost Krisiun –like relentlessness as each of the 9 (8 real tracks, “…And So it Ends” is an outro) tracks blaze by with barely any refrain. The outro notwithstanding, only brief moments of “Suffocate,” start of “Beyond the Grace of God” allow Van Develde and co any time to rest from assaulting your ears with the likes of slightly underwhelming opener “Amongst the Flock,” “Got Mitt Uns” (God With Us), “Empty Lord,” "To Dominate," "Spawn of Chaos" and “Kill the Nazerene” which are about as punishing as any death metal you'll hear from 2007 (the year of this album's release). But that being said it is fairly generic death metal and as you can see the band went to ‘Death Metal 101-the 90s’ for their lyrical content.
Still, I like discovering new bands and even if Celebrant are doing nothing new in death metal, when it's executed this well and with this kind of production, I can’t help but enjoy it.
