The one major release by Swedish death prog band Crypt of Kerberos, World of Myths is getting the reissue treatment. Digitally re-mastered, the reissue appears in digipak form resplendent with new artwork and layout, an updated CD booklet with live and studio images, special liner notes by drummer Mattias Borgh and a bunch of never-before-released rehearsal demos from the entire World Of Myths studio session. Yep, it's happening all over the place and plenty of labels are digging up a lot of old material from the darkest depths of near-obscurity and making it more widely available before it dies an untimely death. And in this case, thankfully so. First issued in 1993, World of Myths arrived at a time when death metal was beginning to be pulled and pushed and stretched and beaten significantly into weird and wonderful shapes and shoved in all kinds of unorthodox directions. Adding unusual textures to the gritty barbarity of death metal, Crypt Of Kerberos's uniqueness makes it presence felt in their experimentation with the highly technical aspect of the band balanced with their raw, primitive violence and an ear for the unusual and distinctive. Despite the naff synth sounds, the sparse keyboard work of the album adds another dimension to the virtuoso playing, the heavy-duty riffage and the avant-garde elements, and when combined with the again sparse clean vocals, the bleak facets become more intense. Aggressive, intense, and in some ways musically advanced (and in some ways a little awkward), almost twenty years old, the album still holds its own and works as more than just a very interesting retrospective on death metal's development.
Of course, the studio tracks are of much better quality than the rehearsal and live tracks, and these additions are intended to give the listener a more rounded experience of the album, but the album's good enough without them and so add very little to the package that anyone other than a completest or metal historian would appreciate. Combining death with doom and progressive elements may well be the norm right now, but the melodic, the technical, the progressive, and the experimental elements of the album mark Crypt of Kerberos out as a band that were trying to push a few boundaries. And despite a few rough edges, had these guys stayed together, today they may have posed some serious competition. Shame the album cover's crap…
Track Listing:
- Cyclone Of Insanity
- The Canticle
- Dream…
- Stormbringer
- Ancient War
- Nocturnal Grasp
- Sleeping God
- World Of Myths
- The Canticle
- World Of Myths
- Nocturnal Grasp
- Stormbringer
- Ancient War
- Cyclone Of Insanity
- Dream…
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