Crucifyre
Black Magic Fire
(Pulverised Records)
Formed by former member of Afflicted, Yassin Hillborg, this Swedish black, death and thrash project also enlists the talents of current members of Crematory, Nasum, and Repugnant among others. It is a sandwich of respected talents and is performed in the same fashion that you might expect from skilled veterans such as these. As such, you can expect an array of dizzying leads, fierce and frantic guitar solos, as well as a devilish rasp from frontman Witchpriest, who is certainly well-deserved of the name. It’s not the kind of record that needs a collegiate essay, as it’s purely a mixture of three great metal genres and manages to excel with each and every one of them. Some tracks offer a more blackened approach with blasts filling up the room and vocal scowls to back them, while others seem geared towards the nineties style of death/thrash, albeit with an obvious blacker approach to the vocal lines. There’s never uttered a real growl on the album, but for the sake of kvltists it is not a traditional black metal record by far. Rather Black Magic Fire is something far more than that. It’s a veritable return to form if you will, of metal sounding like metal and of a band sounding like they came to conquer instead of seeing just how precise they could be or how many odd sound effects they could throw into the mix at times to accentuate the performance. While those styles are all well and good to listeners of different metal genres, Crucifyre certainly returns us to those eighties and nineties heydays when metal was still in its early years and people weren’t concerned with the latest trends. Perhaps this will drive away some of the younger crowd, but that’s alright as it seems geared towards the old heads, the ones who remember what it’s like to put on a Death album or something from Deceased or Coroner and call it a day. Oddly enough, some cherubs manage to appear on the album’s closing track “One And One Is One” and I have no idea how in the world the studio talked these children into backing such a dark and grizzled beast as this. With unruly odes to Baphomet, the whore of Babylon and old scratch himself, there’s nothing child-friendly about this monstrosity and that’s just how we like it. So if you’re in the mood for the kind of grim darkness that features an atmosphere that would send priests at your door for fear of your eternal soul, then definitely get your grimy little hands on this grimoire and raise your horns high to the dark gods of metal! (Eric May)
Purchase Black Magic Fire here.
