ALBUM REVIEW: Crux Simplex – Profanatica
At this point in their career, PROFANATICA are an institution within extreme metal. Since the band reformed in 2001, they have produced some of the most aggressive and primal blackened death metal out there, not wavering from that raw and visceral sound in their 30-plus years as a band. Their latest, sixth album, Crux Simplex is yet another oppressively dark and caustic monolith that shows the band are every bit as ferocious as ever, and serves as perhaps their harshest material in recent years.
The foreboding and sinister Condemned To Unholy Death kicks things off in suitably dark and ominous fashion, with eerie ambience and monstrous vocals setting the tone for the rest of the album, building up to a rabid, crushing slab of blackened death metal with grating guitars, feral vocals and a dense, meaty groove. It’s as dramatic as it is primitive, and it serves as an excellent start to proceedings. Take Up The Cross picks up seamlessly from where the previous track left off, combining angular guitar work, sludgy basslines and thunderous, percussive drums, with only the stringent snarl of the vocals adding a sharper edge to the sound as it carves through the mix like a rusty blade. The First Fall, with its chunky hooks and frenetic pace, is another slab of caustic blackened death, with noticeably more intricate drumming adding a clash of cymbals behind this veritable juggernaut.
Meeting Of A Whore follows in a familiar vein, with biting riffs, pummelling drums and visceral vocal lines all combining for a harsh and incredibly focused sound. There’s also a decidedly tighter approach to the guitars, which, a few rhythmic bursts aside, possess a sharp and hypnotic feel that draws the listener in even further. Compelled By Romans takes the pace to a crawl, creating a monolithic and minimalistic sound, with rumbling bass, slow, almost droning guitars and low, throaty growls shifting the momentum of this album away from the intense to the atmospheric, although, as with all of the band’s material, it is undoubtedly fierce and aggressive even at its most reserved, especially when the punchy, punk-inflected climax comes in.
Wipe The Fucking Face Of Jesus, by contrast, moves away from the primal death-doom of the preceding offering and lurches abruptly into a harder, weightier death metal sound, with excellently ferocious guitars, disjointed hooks and vocals providing a searing aural assault while the energetic bass and drums inject a thicker, harder undercurrent to counterpoint the bestial hooks that define this particular number. The Second Fall, with its punishing and unflinchingly savage style on all fronts, is again extremely solid death metal, albeit noticeably faster than the last song, with the guitars and vocals once more creating a noxious, rabid sound that is old school blackened death metal done impressively well.
Cunts Of Jerusalem likewise has the sort of tight, frenzied elements that served the previous three offerings well, with vicious, imaginative hooks piled seemingly on top of each other, making this a far more unpredictable affair, and arguably one of the album’s most aggressive and muscular pieces of music. The Third Fall, another coarse and chaotic track which sees the guitars, bass and drums coalesce in a dizzying whirlwind of cacophony, provides a denser and more atmospheric take on the visceral blackened death that the band are famous for, creating a primordial brew of domineering, primal hooks that’s hard not to get drawn in by.
The album’s final track, Division Of Robes, proves to be a lengthier one, but it’s nonetheless every bit as strident and caustic as the others, although the emphasis is placed a little more prominently on the sort of mid-paced, rhythmic death-doom that made Compelled By Romans stand out from the pack, with nauseating barks and roars from the vocals complementing the powerful sound on display here with a much more visceral approach. The funereal dirge and ethereal atmospherics that bring this to a close further add to the bleak and sombre mood, and distinguish this final, sprawling monolith from the others by providing a magnificent, climactic exclamation point.
PROFANATICA‘s sound and style is very well established, and long time fans of the band will not be surprised to hear that this is every bit as harsh, murky and ferocious as everything else in their discography. PROFANATICA are certainly not trying to reinvent the wheel with this album or any of their albums for that matter, but that’s besides the point. They’ve stood firm to the core sound of raw, primitive black and death metal, put their own spin on it, and have stuck to their guns with everything they’ve done. It’s clear that even three decades deep into their career, they aren’t losing any of the venom and aggression that’s made them a pillar of extreme metal since their inception. The band that produced Crux Simplex is every bit as punishing as the one that wrote their earliest demos, and they aren’t running out of ideas any time soon.
Rating: 9/10
Crux Simplex is out now via Season Of Mist.
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