Over the previous 12 months I’ve found a deeper respect for brutal dying steel. Positive it performs to our most base instincts. Positive it targets the reptilian parts of our mind and coaxes out our interior knuckle draggers. Positive it locations brutality and ease over technicality and nuance. However why are we right here on a website known as “Indignant Metallic Man” if we’re not recreation to bury pointed sticks in our amygdalas, set our limbic techniques on fireplace and throw rocks on the solar like good quaint Neanderthals? It was for that frontal lobe-atomizing expertise that I picked up Rituals of Death, the second full-size from Wisconsin’s personal Casket Robbery. Combining a brutish title and becoming music titles with a rising need to leap aboard the slam wagon, I used to be greater than wanting to dive head first into this report and get my casket effectively and really robbed.
Casket Robbery are guitar-smashing Cro-Magnons to make sure, however they’ve a bit extra going for them than serving as simply one other Devourment clone. Whilst you get a lot of fats, mid-paced riffs amidst a barrage of double bass and snare motion, there are additionally completely different vocal deliveries, synths, solos and atmospherics that assist increase (and in some instances rise above) what we’ve come to anticipate from the brutal dying steel style. In some ways, these additions are like placing fairly pink bows on a rabid St. Bernard. Positive it’ll nonetheless maul you, however the vibrant colours might draw your eye proper earlier than it’s ripped from its socket. The unrelenting barrage can also be punctuated by a lot of surprisingly catchy moments and memorable choruses, selections that remind me of The Texas Homicide Crew, one other BDM band I reviewed earlier this 12 months who had the same knack for crafting a stable hook.
Whereas the guitars crush, smash and chug away on Rituals of Death, it’s the drums that actually drive the album ahead, bursting forward with pace-demon double bass and a blastbeat assault worthy of a restraining order. Opener “Worm Meals” is the template for this strategy, whereas concurrently introducing efficient backing synths that assist steadiness some of the extra brutish parts on show. “Don’t Neglect the Eyes” equally toys with atmospheric synths in addition to a unusual solo and “Death’s Dance” concludes with a foreboding orchestral interlude. These tunes seize Casket Robbery at their finest: capable of mix pummeling breakdowns with the surprising and out-of-the-unusual (for BDM, not less than). That is maybe most obvious within the various vocal deliveries on the album. From Megan Orvold-Scheider’s omnipresent growls to deeper, grimier vox, layered vocals (“Lovely Death,” “Bone Mom”) chants (“Publish Mortem”), whispers (“The Hidden Hideous”) and even a lone clear. Add in some earworm choruses, pit-stoking riffs, and intelligent backing synths on “Reanimate” that echoes with out aping the superb “Re-Animator” theme, and Casket Robbery crafted an album with sufficient character and vigor to warrant a respectful quantity of spins.
That being stated, these repeated spins might have much less of an affect than you’d hope for. Casket Robbery declare that their slamtastic salvos are “brutally catchy,” they usually’re right. There are a lot of stable hooks on Rituals of Death, making the already tight runtime go by even faster. The difficulty is that even after a number of listens, these memorable moments aren’t so memorable in any case. They’re enjoyable within the second they usually definitely encourage a gnawing need to assault the closest massive mammal with a sharpened software, however as soon as the album has ended, the mud has settled and also you go on about your day, these catchy moments from Rituals of Death don’t have a tendency to stay round. Briefly, these grave thieves have a enjoyable however fleeting report on their palms; participating within the second, however too shortly forgotten.
Of their Bandcamp bio, Casket Robbery consult with themselves as “dying steel with a wink.” I believe that could be a excellent description for this band and maybe the brutal dying steel subgenre as a complete. This midwestern quintet brings the riffs, the chugs, the brutality, and the catchiness, all with out taking themselves too significantly. It’s a wonderful line, however one Casket Robbery appears ready to stroll, even amidst a number of stumbles and false begins. So whereas my takeaway is in the end a blended one, it is a rating that have to be punctuated with the “room to develop” qualifier. Brutal dying and slam proceed to develop on me, and Casket Robbery has assisted in that imperfect journey. Kudos, you filthy cemetery fiends.
Ranking: 2.5/5.0
DR: 4 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Blood Blast Distribution
Web sites: casketrobbery.bandcamp.com | fb.com/casketrobbery
Releases Worldwide: November 11th, 2022