Ominous Crucifix: The Spell of Damnation

After a demo, a split, and an EP, Mexico's Ominous Crucifix have released their first full length, The Spell of Damnation. Compromised of eight tracks that are frankly middle-of-the-road death metal that ticks all of the boxes in order to mark it out as a good, solid death metal album, there is little to mark it out as anything significantly different, ground-breaking, or better than adequate. Where the production is dark and atmospheric, it sounds like a well-produced demo rather than a debut album. If they're trying to retain that 'underground' sound, on the one hand, it's to their detriment, on the other, it detracts from the limited variation in song structure and dynamics. The riffs are simplistic and repetitive to the point of divesting them of any of the power they may once have had; the vocal delivery is one-dimensional (the chorus of 'Putrid Purity' for example is the monotonous, syllabic repetition of those two words to the point of tedium); the drum beats are almost identical throughout; and the determination to slay all that reeks of religion for all time serves only to grind the listener down, slowly. Painfully so. This album should do much more because there is something compelling about Ominous Crucifix. The trouble is that it's missing from this album. After the last track, it's unlikely you'll be making a quick return. This is one of those albums that hides away for a while, and then when you stumble across it months later, you play it once, maybe up to about track six and then return it to its temporary absence.

Track Listing:

1. Third Day Resurrection
2. Putrid Purity
3. Primitive Sin
4. Defiling The Altars Of An Absent God
5. Secular Omens Of Doom
6. Church Of Death
7. The Spell Of Damnation
8. Repulsive Sanctification Of The Absurd

Added: February 22nd 2012
Reviewer: Jason Guest
Score:
Related Link: Ominous Crucifix on MySpace
Hits: 2025
Language: english

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