Crypt Lurker is the new album from Seattle death metal band Deconsecration, their first full-length studio release.

Deconsecration is a new band, having its origins in the Pacific Northwest in 2019. They have been revving up the whole time with a demo, a live album, and a split with Re-Buried. Their music will spark OSDM nostalgia now and then, combined with fluid and caustic innovations that make it undeniably from our time. The band is Moises Pimentel (bass), H. Murder (drums), Dylan Benedict (guitar), Jordan Garcia (guitar), and Zach Raphael (vocals).

It all begins on a doom stroke with the title track. Weird noises and rattlings lead into deadly heavy riffs and ominously croaking vocals. The screws get turned and the tempo picks up soon enough. Instead of the feeling that you are wandering through a mist-shrouded forest after dark that you had when the song began, you now have the piercing sensation of being in an active torture chamber. If you survive and make it outside, “Cephalic Fermentation” is the next tombstone you trip over. It is a chaotic, panic-inducing thrashing from the very beginning. By the time “Putrescent Birth” rolls around, you start to believe you are in a dark, damp corner of an abandoned Cannibal Corpse castle.

The album is solid throughout. The interconnectedness of the old school death metal elements, the doom, and the periodic splash of blackened thrash is excellent. My favorite tracks come at the end. “Plague Cadaver” is beautifully cinematic with relentless percussion and “Bells Upon the Graves” is an enduring testament to hopelessness. Recommended.

Crypt Lurker is out now through Chaos Records in digital, CD, and vinyl. Stump Grinder Records will be issuing a cassette. Check it out at the links below.

Links.

Deconsecration website, https://deconsecration.com/

Bandcamp, https://deconsecration.bandcamp.com/album/crypt-lurker

Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/deconsecrationseattle

Stump Grinder Records, https://stumpgrinderrecords.bigcartel.com/

Chaos Records, https://www.chaos-records.com/

© Wayne Edwards