Review of Cruentus - Night Embrace Me

My man Ray Lopez, owner of Thrash Corner Records recently re-released this debut album on CD, from Sweden’s Cruentus.  Night Embrace Me is 10 songs of blackened/death/thrash metal.  The opening song, “Slain”, gets things underway quickly.  Some early Skeletonwitch influence are evident early on.  The one thing, well there are many, that you will notice is the organic, natural sound on this album.  The drums are very organic and the double bass is not the clicky typewriter style on modern brutal death metal.  Cruentus transports us back into the mid-late 80’s extreme metal at the time.  The opening song is really good, with some catchy moments.  “At the Remains” is up next and I really dig the guitar sound.  Some of the drumming has some very loose moments-but this adds to the fun and natural quality on the album.  It’s as if the band just got together, recorded in 1 room and pressed record.

“Wonders” at over 6 minutes has more early black metal riffing, with black metally type of vocals mixed in with a thrash metal speed, as the backdrop.  The speed slows down to a nice mid-paced moment.  The vocals are a little too high in the mix, for my liking, they needed to be scaled back and the guitars a bit louder.  The isolated guitar riff at the 2.15 mark is excellent-it’s one of the best moments on the album, before the singer let’s out a vintage Tom Warrior, circa 1986 Celtic Frost grunt.  This next section is slower and the guitar riffs, even has a little bit of Mercyful Fate to the guitar melodies.  Therefore this part with the Frost and Fate influence, is quite killer.  The speed eventually returns and the song gallops along at a brisk thrash metal pace with more excellent guitar riffing.

After a brief instrumental, “Second of the Season” comes forth.  This begins as a doom/death plodding opening sequence, before going into a speedier section.  I forgot to mention earlier this band is run by 2 dudes.  One plays drums/sings and the other guitar/bass/vocals.  So unsure, but one of them does more of the gruff death metal vocals.  Interspersed the styles mix nicely.  I prefer the death metal vocals to the raspy black metal vocal, but just my proclivity.  This song moves along really nicely and the slow down riff and spoken whispered vocals at the 3.15 part is atmospheric and listen to this with headphones-it’s a bit spooky and enhances the listening experience.  The song ends in an epic fashion with the doom part erupting and it’s plodding and depressing.

The Cruentus debut –  Night Embrace Me is a lot of fun.  It’s loose in some places and has some spotty areas with the mix.  Yeah, you’ve heard these riffs before, but they are a lot of fun.  More natural and organic bands I appreciate more, than plastic sounding ones, because you can tell there was less studio trickery.  The black n white cover works well with some of the stark overall contrast to the music.  Nicely crafted debut.