ALBUM REVIEW: All Light Swallowed – Crypts of Despair

The death metal revival have showed no signs of slowing down in recent years. With bands across the world revitalising the essence and raw power of metal’s most explosive genre, the death metal scene in 2021 is alive and bursting at the seams. Having formed way back in 2009, years before the death metal revival started to accelerate its ascent from the depths of hell, Lithuania’s CRYPTS OF DESPAIR resemble somewhat a slumbering beast. Taking a gargantuan eight years since forming before The Stench Of The Earth rose from the crypt, their 2017 debut turned heads. Now, four years later, the band return with their sophomore outing; All Light Swallowed.

Let’s make one thing clear, All Light Swallowed is monumentally savage. Passages of bruising death metal and sinister black metal twist and contort and swirl like a vicious maelstrom, all the while benefiting from a stellar production job. From the moment Being – Erased roars into life and blows you away, CRYPTS OF DESPAIR grab you by the throat and pound you into oblivion over the album’s 35 minute runtime.

Largely, this is down to the fact that CRYPTS OF DESPAIR have a plethora of incredible riffs in their arsenal. Synergy of Suffering boasts monolithic chugging, The Great End features some slick black metal inspired leads that intertwine with the pummelling rhythm whilst Condemned To Life is an utter earworm thanks to its infectious and diverse riffing. Vocally, the band excel too. D.A. and S.J. counter-balance each other perfectly throughout the record’s runtime, effortlessly trading blows with each other as the vocals twist and turn from guttural bellows that have the weight of a collapsing Neutron star to piercing shrieks that shred your eardrums. Anguished Exhale swings like a scythe as the two vocalists combine their distinct styles in one of the album’s early highlights whilst the guttural belch that kicks off Condemned To Life is northing short of monolithic in its power.

It’s not all continuous blasts of neck-snapping brutality, the smartest characteristic behind CRYPTS OF DESPAIR is when the band adopt a more refrained approach and it makes the record connect are the more powerfully. Choked By The Void is a perfect example of this. Sinister and foreboding guitar work sets an unsettling scene before the band unleash one hell of a monster of a mid-tempo riff that just begs for heads to bang. From there, they erupt into a passage of play that is relentlessly fast and brutal until evolving into a closure where intricate riffs combine effortlessly with a wave of double-bass drumming that will leave your jaw of the floor. It is simply exhilarating.

Meanwhile, Excruciating Weight leans more heavily towards the black metal undertones to the band’s sound as tremolo riffing, blasts of vocal shrieks and wave after wave of blast-beats keep the ferocity high, but the resulting soundscape feels much more sinister and frostbitten as a result. Far from a one-trick pony, there is so many flourishes and intricate flashes of a soundscape expanding here, showcasing that CRYPTS OF DESPAIR are truly a special band indeed.

With so much quality across the board, All Light Swallowed is nothing short of sublime, however, the only blemish comes with the final track; Bleak View. Here, CRYPTS OF DESPAIR meander and plod along at a pace with no real sense of purpose or direction, just wallowing in a eerie sense of dread without the razor-sharp and precise brutality experienced prior. Atmospherically, it is fine, but it just feels like a continuous build which has no roaring finish, it just abruptly ends. You have to question its placement, surely this would work better as the album’s customary introductory track? Despite the puzzling inclusion, it’s nothing but a slight dampener, and it isn’t catastrophic enough to derail the impact of the record as a complete package.

Blemish aside, All Light Swallowed is a truly magnificent record and one of the year’s strongest releases. Capitalising on the good strides they made with their 2017 debut, with All Light Swallowed, CRYPTS OF DESPAIR prove that they are one of death metal’s most essential names today. Ruthless and exhilarating, this is a record that will blow you away and will have you coming back time and time again.

Rating: 9/10

All Light Swallowed is set for release on April 23rd via Transcending Obscurity Records. 

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