It’s amazing what adding a new band member or two can do for a band. After a self-released EP, The Prophet of Disgust, in 2018, Colorado’s Crown Magnetar added vocalist Dan Tucker and guitarist Nick Scott From And Hell Followed With, a decent deathcore band who were actually on Earache Records at one point (and have an album coming out shortly also). And then released the pulverizing The Codex of Flesh in 2021, and they blew the fuck up to be one of the new darlings of deathcore. And their reward was a record deal with a perfect fit, Unique Leader Records, arguably the best US-based deathcore label going right now, and here is the celebratory, ‘new record deal’ EP.
Like their debut and ss if to directly go against the current trend of orchestration, keyboards, and blackened atmospherics in deathcore, (which BTW, I’m loving), have chosen to instead be more direct and tear your fucking face off with an absolutely brutal, direct 16 minutes, 6 songs of utter devastation. Though certainly a deathcore band, and have the breakdowns to prove it, I’m reminded of the early-mid-00s bands like The Red Shore, Those That Lie Beneath, As You Drown and such, where were deathcore at heart but also had one foot heavily planed in brutal death metal.
First off, Dan Tucker is a fucking beast, I’m not sure if there is a vocalist out there as imposing vocally and it appears physically, and the music matches to boot. The 6 relatively short bangers all deliver punishing blast beasts, that are virtually relentless, as heard on the blistering opening duo of “Alone in Death” and “Hellsphere”, but both also feature cursing breakdowns. And of course, there are plenty of those to be had in the 6 songs such as “Realistic Flesh Mask” (featuring Molotivs Solution‘s Nick Arthur) the opening of the surprisingly technical “The Pain of Existence” (featuring Jamie Hanks of I Declare War), “Graverot” (maybe the heaviest of all of them) and closer “God is my Enemy” but they certainly are not the focus as with some of their peers.
A perfect addition to Unique leader alongside label mates Osiah and Signs of the Swarm for uncompromising, utterly brutal deathcore, and arguably one the crown jewels of this current deathcore revival.
