Crocell - The God We Drowned

When an album comes with a cover artwork depicting some sort of ghastly demon in an embryo or decomposing state and has song titles such as “Death Knell”, “We Are The Dead” and “To Those That I Shall Kill”, you known straight way it isn’t going to be beautiful songs about birds and flowers. Therefore, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to witness that Denmark’s Crocell belts out some crushing, fierce and slightly melody-charged Death-Metal that displays some affinities with the more visceral releases of Edge of Sanity, Hypocrisy and Necrophobic.
Throughout 45 minutes the Danes sway from deathly fast and intense Death-Metal riffing with a somewhat groovy edge to slow, gloomy-driven riffs denoting some affection towards a genre like Doom-Metal, all packed with some serious punch and diversity. The levels of intensity reach their highest peak on songs like “Apotheosis”, “God We Drowned” and “Death Knell” with a vicious, catchy and hard-hitting crunch, while themes like “Winter is Coming” and the instrumental “Culling” favour a more slow-paced and melodic approach, with the first smacking heavily of Hypocrisy circa the “Abducted” album.
With an array of remarkable releases from Exmortem, Thorium and Dawn of Demise recently issued, it looks like the Danish Death-Metal scene has never been so alive and kicking and Crocell are another surprising addition to that fast growing movement, whose music is definitely worthy of further investigation. (7/10)

Band info: www.myspace.com/crocelldk
Label info: www.coprorecords.co.uk