Oh, shoot, one of the albums which fell behind the virtual drawer and never got the review it deserved a long, long time ago! My humble apologies go out to Crocell, a Danish death metal crew who has paid its dues on the stages of this wee country and released more than half-decent material in the shape of the debut album, 'The God We Drowned' from 2008 and 2011's 'The Wretched Eidola'.
As the sharpest of you readers will already have deducted from the rating above, I consider 'Come Forth Plague' a really good album. It takes Crocell from the level of being a great local band to the level where I'd think that some international attention is well-deserved.
The five-piece takes elements of Slayer (try Scars of Red and you get the point), Morbid Angel (listen to the larger-than life tune Teachings of Terror, Doctrines of Death, and you'll surely know what I mean!), bits of Bolt Thrower and a tiny, tiny occational touch of (modern) black metal ethos and fuses it into a wonderfully dynamic and at times even beautiful blend of heavy music.
Overall, there's a bit more speed added to 'Come Forth Plague' than what we've heard from Crocell before, and it's not at all a bad thing. It will, however, be interesting to see how things move forward for the band now with guitarist Ken having split to join Illdisposed and bassist Onkel Kusse (Uncle Cunt)(!) having made the same manoeuvre. It should be noted here, now that we're talking personnel changes, that the nolonger-so-new front man, Bjørn Steffensen, does a fine job on the album.
Needless to say, I'm quite enthusiastic about this album! For those of you death metal fans out there who haven't already done so, do yourself a favour and check out 'Come Forth Plague'. Great Danish death metal inside!
