Review: Cruz

Cruz, Culto Abismal, Sentient Ruin Laboratories

cruz1The dregs of this shit week were enlivened by the receipt of this awesome disk. What we have here is eight helpings of extremely tasty death metal riffage. It’s mostly middling in tempo (right about the speed and gruffness of Corpse’s classic “Black Dawn) and I have to say I like that. Blast beats are cool and all, and they really seemed like something novel to me when I heard Napalm Death do them in the 1980s, but they’re really not my favorite part of death metal.

These Barcelona thrashers have a pretty good formula: crushing, straightforward death metal with galloping beats and utterly tortured vocals. There are a lot of bands to which they might be compared. They sort of remind me of a kind of grimier sounding version of Entombed, although they generally don’t get up to the speeds that Swedes moved at. But that’s just fine. Cruz have an idea of what they want to do and the execute their plan with panache and aggression.

cruz2This disc has been on repeat in my car for the best part of a week now, and every time I listen to it I pick up some nuance or vibe that I hadn’t caught before. The thing that differentiates them from a lot of bands that don’t roll at super high speeds is that their riffs are complex and compelling. They’re not content to just chug along on damped bar chords. Not to harp on the Entombed thing, but their riffs sort of put me in mind of a more aggressive version of Clandestine.

The sound of this record is absolutely perfect: dark and dismal, but clear enough to let the music shine through. Culto Abismal was recorded and mixed by Javi Félez (bassist in Graveyard who are only marginally less awesome). It was mastered by none other than Brad Boatright, who pretty much turns everything he touches into dark, thrashy gold, and this is no exception. Boatright brings a certain bleak aesthetic to everything he does, and Culto Abismal is a perfect example of this. It is a dark, swirling mass of sound rolling forward with the momentum of a freight train.

Yeah, just to sum up, this is the best thing I’ve heard since the last Martyrdöd album came out, and but for the awesomeness of that record it would be the best release that I heard from 2016. So if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to crank this up again and keep on rocking until the apocalypse descends.

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