What hasn’t changed is the band’s deft mix of multiple genres, from Bolt Thrower and Swedish death metal to some black metal, war metal, and some black/thrash, and even some Gothenburg death metal with damn solid results.

Those elements come together both between songs and smoothly within them. Case in point: the opening title track has a lot of everything thrown into one eight-minute mass of tumbling, rumbling riffs; the early  Entombed, “Revel in Flesh” styled gallop standout “Inexorable Slaughter”, the pure spikes-and-leather black thrash of “Fully Armed and Filthy”, the Bolt Thrower trundle of “Unto the Anvil of War” (which also has another “Revel in Flesh” type riff), the tremolo-picking riffs in “Warp Storm Imminent”. In all, I keep being reminded of fellow Kentuckians Abominant.

If my ears are correct, there is even some slight keyboard usage in “Penitent Engine”, and then in “Iron Within, Iron Without”, the album’s other standout, gets blasty with some Dismember-y melodies before the closer “Eternal Enslavement” wraps things up with a song that does a little of everything, but i would have preferred the album go out with a bit more of a memorable bang.

The production has a slight Swedish buzz to it, but I wouldn’t call it a full-on buzzsaw guitar tone, and vocalist/guitarist Conqueror Horus has a throaty rasp and shout, keeping things in that black/thrash realm, though the odd gruff bellow reminds you this is mostly solid, enjoyable death/black metal at its core.

If you’re into bands like Sadus, Warbringer, Cynic/latter Death, you will really dig Inscribed. When you’re thinking of the Sadus inspiration, refer to A Vision of Misery, when the band went into a more progressive/thrash phase. Lucas has a definite John Kevill (Warbringer) vibe to his vocal delivery, immediately heard on the album opener, “Inquisition for Hatred”. Frantic in its pace, the song does slow down, for some well-timed guitar soloing, and excellent bass guitar strumming from Evie. Evie posts a lot of reels of bass guitar play-throughs on some classic death and thrash metal songs – (still waiting for your reel of playing our “Languish in Despair” bass lines).

With an album cover that looks like it came out of 1985, especially with the awesome band logo, the band does not sound dated. Very cool album opener, which is bested by the next song, “Machinery of War”. Awesome bass guitar lines and a really ripping blast beat, equipped with isolated bass guitar moments and a rather intense galloping thrash metal attack. If you are also into newer death/thrash metal bands, like my buddy Vivek’s band, Desolus, you will want to hop on this album in 0.0 seconds. The song slows back down for some progressive moments, taking us to classic tech eras of Cynic/Death/ Pestilence. More guitar solos and the bass guitar is ever present, in the mix, moving that rhythm section along quite nicely.

“On the Stage of Death” starts with the progressive moments of Death. A ripping isolated guitar solo begins before the thrash metal attack. With an organic production to boot, it’s nice to hear drums, which sound real and do not sound like a typewriter. Lucas lets out some deeper vocal tones and has a varying display of vocal tones. He is most comfortable with the Warbringer style of thrash metal vocals. This track slows down to atmospherics and ambience, with an abundance of progressive qualities. During this instrumental section, you can’t help but wonder: where is album #2 going to take us? More excellent bass guitar moments, which have some Maiden/Rush qualities to it.

“Oracle of Chaos”, which was on the EP, is a bit better here, with the improved production and tightness of the instruments. The intensity, especially with the blast, is on full display. Galloping fist-banging mania – baby!! “Formed Through Control” ends the album, beginning with the sounds of ocean waves. Maybe the band recorded some Miami waves for this part. The galloping moments erupt, then slow down, with some very good deeper register vocals. A varying of their tempo shifts, coinciding with their aggression, is how you close out an album properly.

Inscribed is an exciting young and up-and-coming death/thrash metal band. Upon the Twisted Throne is a fun and thrashing debut album. If the band can continue on this course, play live as much as possible, maybe even tour, they could have a bright future. I am enjoying this album immensely!

Newcomers, Necrogore are from Italy (who already have bands like Horrid and Eroded playing this style), and they play a pretty killer style of the genre. This is the band’s debut, but they have some singles and splits, as well as an appearance on the Dismember tribute album Dreaming in Red from 2024 (their song was “The God That Never Was”).

Once a genre that got me super excited immediately, not much over the last year or so has really grabbed my attention – even the 2025 releases from stalwarts Entrails, Lik, and Carnal Savagery barely registered with me. The last few bands that really impressed me were Come, Sweet Death, and Gravestone from 2023. But a couple of Spring/summer efforts here in 2026 might pull me back in; of course, there is the new Fleshcrawl, Xorcist’s Aberrations, and this gnarly debut.

With the moniker of Necrogore and song titles like “Leeches on My Dick” and “Forced to Eat Shit”, you’d be forgiven for thinking this power trio would be a porno/goregrind band, but they pull fully from the holy trifecta of Dismember, Entombed (the opening intro is a clear nod to “Left Hand Path”), and Grave.

The chainsaw guitar tone is spot on, as the band essentially states they created their own version of the HM-2 pedal, and the songs all deliver an excellent mix of the big three above. From the galloping, hacks ‘n’ slashes of “Forced to Eat Shit” and “Leeches on My Dick”, the punky blasts and gallops of “Offered to the Dead” and “Mediumistic Intercession”, the Grave-ish stomps of the instrumental title track, and “One Foot in the Grave” and even the more lumbering doomy, six+ minute “Sulphureal Morbid Corpse”.

The album ends with a fierce Swedish death metal reworking of  Jerry Lambert’s The Texas Chainsaw Theme, and only die-hard horror score fans will even recognize it.

A solid, promising debut from a young band paying homage to the elder gods, but still putting a bit of their own personality into things.

The album consists of the band’s split, ep, and demo material recorded prior to their 2020 debut Fall into Dementia, all rerecorded and rearranged, plus a new song and a cover of Pestilence’s “Suspended Animation” (one of my very favorite Pestilence songs FWIW). And regardless of the age of the songs (2013-2016?) they all deliver a blistering, catchy take on American Death metal.

I get foul notes of Deicide and Monstrosity’s full-on thrashier take on death metal. But there is a lot of other stuff at last as well.  A dash of the European scene (Asphyx, Sinister) and for a really obscure reference, I hear some of The Netherlands’  I.N.R.I’s debut album Hyper Bastard Breed, in the faster, relentless songs.  Then just add the innate South American intensity and razor-sharp guitars of say, Krisiun, and you get an incredibly satisfying buffet of styles.

And those intercontinental influences come together to form a very, very enjoyable death metal record that I have been giving a lot of air time to. The styles are melded seamlessly into a furious but also controlled 50 minutes. The production leans more into the cleaner Morrisosund of yore, with not a whole lot of bass, but the 11 songs all deliver everything you’d want on a death metal record.  I mean, go to the second track “Wheels of Convulsion”, or ” Stillborn Abomination”, “Celestial Devourment”  and “From the Abyss It Came” and tell me those do not scratch every single death metal itch you might have – blast beat, solos or slow stomp.

The brand new song “Acid Storm” follows suit, with maybe a little more control than the rest of the songs but shows these guys are consistent as fuck. My only minor gripe is the production for the Pestilence cover, which is way thinner and demo-sounding than the rest of the killer, from out of nowhere album.

Imagine the bludgeon of early Carcass, the melodious slice of Dismember, the heft of Grave, the catchy ferocity of Entombed, and the epic, dank, darkness of early Amorphis; pair all of that with a smidge of Naplam Death and General Surgery, and maybe even just a slight dab of old Katatonia (mostly in the lead guitar tone here and there), and what you end up with is a hands down, bonafide ripping badass of an album. At ten tracks, the longest clocking in at a mere three and a half minutes, Celestial Extinction is obviously a compact listen. There’s nothing too tech or flashy, or jaw dropping and dazzling to be found here, just good old fashioned awesome death metal. The kind that gets in, kicks your teeth out, and promptly exits the premises. It’s the kind of death metal that made some of us “older” dudes fall in love with the genre in the first place.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5TN0z8vBWA

Every song on the album is quite good. Damn good, actually. I don’t necessarily have a personal favorite as all of the material is top notch, and all have something gnarly and badass about them. From the catchy, gripping opener, “Cocoon Hecatomb”, the fast as balls pacing and blasting of ripper, “Dripping with Skin”, or the Benediction meets Entombed stylings of “Monastery Worms” to the grinding death surge in “Solemn Desolation”, the sick symphony of necrotic might that is “Cadaverizor”, or the closing title track, “Celestial Extinction”, with its brutal yet somewhat doomy drenched melody/theme that runs through the track; you’re simply going to be grinning from ear to ear with this album.

Achieving a sound that is as every bit as fresh as it is nostalgic, the material, while not overly produced, is clean and clear within its cavernous, filthy crunch. Speaking of crunch, you can tell that blue hat, faux admiral cartoon fuck on the cereal boxes to get the hell out, ‘cuz there’s a new Cap’n in town when it comes to crunch…all cheesiness aside, Celestial Extinction brings that crunchy groove in spades, as every single track has some sort of simple, fat crunchy monster riff that seems to steal the show. The only flaw with the album is that it’s backloaded to my ears, with the latter half shining just a bit stronger than the first. Though with every track being winners and all better than your average death metal affair, I can’t really say that is a true flaw. Hell, an album that gets better and better as it goes, showing its personality and individual traits more as the cuts get deeper sounds more like an actual praising point now that  think of it.

Hats off to Chris Anning/Cryptivore for crafting such a fine piece of death metal. Sure Celestial Extinction may not be ground breaking or genre defining, but it sure as hell is genre sustaining, and honestly, with death metal coming up on the big 4-0, I think that may just be much more necessary. Released digitally and on LP earlier this year via bitter Loss Records, the album is just now seeing a limited CD run courtesy of Awakening Records, so don’t dally on getting yourself a physical copy, or you may just miss out.