It’s certainly not everyone’s thing, but I love putting on records and being so baffled by what I’m hearing that I have to reconsider everything I thought I knew about heavy music. It’s fun to be mentally picked apart like that, experiencing devastation that makes the wiring in your brain melt and drip through your ears, making what you’re hearing warp your senses.
One flip through “Carrion Angel,” the debut EP from Cerulean, gave me that experience. It’s not like I’ve never heard death and black metal that chews away at my mental stability, but it’s never been put together quite like this before. The band—vocalist/guitarist/synth player Stephen Knapp, bassist Jared Johnson, bassist/guitarist Garret Davis, drummer Ben Wilson, (Daniela Mars add contrabass flute)—attacks with tenacity and a near-scientific prowess that adds extra ferocity to these songs. This is death and black metal that seeks to maintain its DNA while also morphing into something alien that eats into your brain. This was released by the band last year, but it’s been picked up by I, Voidhanger for wider distribution, as well as what’s supposed to be a more challenging (!!!) EP later in 2024.
“Tower of Silence” is a strange, eerie instrumental opener that makes your blood freeze, and then it’s on to “Sky Burial” that immediately rips with death metal tenacity. Vicious howls lay waste as sinewy, rubbery madness gets you in its grasp, fiery hell spewing through every crevice. The force blisters while the bass flexes, zany, fiery melodies attack, and horns blare out, signaling Armageddon. “Carrion Angel” opens with guitars scuffing, the bass plodding, and the growls drowning in the murk. Then the thing zaps into a manic rage, storming and stabbing, the growls crushing as the guitars go off and sicken. The punishing pace then simmers in soot, the guitars find a way to soar regardless, and the slurry finish leaves your muscles feeling tested. “Gnashing of Teeth” is a complete assault as the bass clobbers, and vicious shrieks peel back your flesh, speed bursting through the gates. The attack continues as wildness is afoot, vile howls crush, and the trudging madness spills into the mouth of hell. Closer “Shroud of Locusts” enters amid a guitar fog, growls retching out of the mystery, the playing turning blinding and sudden. Blood races through your veins as a cooling agent is applied, but it can’t completely soothe the burning. Sounds sift as the howls pummel, the attack hit tornadic levels, and a furious ending sends rock and shrapnel flying full force toward your prone body.
“Carrion Angel” is a mind-bending display of technical prowess and death/black metal fury, and to think their upcoming EP is supposed to be the experimental one! I can’t even imagine. But Cerulean have our attention now with this EP that’s finally getting the widespread recognition it deserves. This isn’t music that goes down easy; this is a full-on assault to the senses, one that won’t allow for easy recovery mentally or physically.
For more on the band, go here: https://www.facebook.com/CeruleanBlackMetal/
To buy the album (U.S.), go here: https://metalodyssey.8merch.us/
Or here (Europe): https://metalodyssey.8merch.com/
For more on the label, go here: https://www.facebook.com/i.voidhanger.records/
Meat Mead Metal 