DEATH FUCKING METAL: JUST BEFORE DAWN AND CROCELL

You get one guess about the theme of this post. It involves new music from two bands with forthcoming albums — Sweden’s Just Before Dawn and Denmark’s Crocell. Neither band mess around — they bring full-strength, undiluted, high-potency death metal that will knock you on your ass, but they do it with flair. Based on the new tracks that have recently premiered from both bands, these albums look like “must get” releases for fans of the genre.

JUST BEFORE DAWN

This is a legitimate death-metal all-star project. The band was founded by multi-instrumentalist Anders Biazzi (Blood Mortized, ex-Amon Amarth) in the summer of 2012, and he was later joined by vocalist Rogga Johansson (Paganizer, Bone Gnawer, Putrevore, Humanity Delete, Demiurg, etc., etc.). Originally intended as a two-man project, it expanded to include participation from a host of others in the recording of the debut album, including six more vocalists:

Jonas Lindblood (Puteraeon)
Mr. Hitchcock (Zombiefication)
Gustav Myrin (Blood Mortized)
Dennis Johansson (Plästerd, Headstoned)
Ralf Hauber (Revel in Flesh)
Tony Freed (Godhate)

The album, entitled Precis Innan Gryningen, also includes guest guitar solos by Jonas Lindblood, Gustav Myrin, and Rick Rozz (Massacre, ex-Death), and it features cover art by one of my favorite metal artists, Daniel “Devilish” Johnson. The album is now scheduled for release by Chaos Records on May 20.

So far, two of the album’s 8 tracks are streaming — the title song and “Under Wheels of Death”. Both of them are goddamn battle tanks of grinding old-school murder. Deliciously down-tuned guitars churn out grisly, tremolo-inflected melodies, and the vocals on both are as bestially ravenous as you could want, with Rogga on the title track and Jonas Lindblood on “Under Wheels”. But the icing on the cake is that both songs are just ridiculously catchy. If these Bolt Thrower-style riffs don’t get you in an unbreakable headlock damned fast, I’ll be surprised. The wraith-like Rick Rozz solo on “Under Wheels of Death” is also well worth waiting for.

Have a listen below, and if you like what you hear, the album can be pre-ordered here.

http://chaos-records.bandcamp.com/album/precis-innan-gryningen
http://www.facebook.com/JustBeforeDawnTheyCame

 

CROCELL

I first learned about Denmark’s Crocell via one of Andy Synn’s SYNN REPORTS, which provided a thorough review of the band’s discography to that point in time. As previously reported here, Crocell have finished work on a new album — Come Forth Plague — which will be released by Metal Hell Records on June 1. The cover art, which is outstanding, was painted by Danish tattoo artist Odin Roar Uldall.

Previously, the band debuted a track from the new album called “Trembling Realms”, which I liked a lot and wrote about  here. Now we have another new song — “The Dark I Will Inhale”. It starts with a high-speed blast of ripping riffage and weaponized drumming, falls into a head-slamming breakdown, and then explodes again in a flurry of jabbing guitars. Really nice serrated vocals by Crocell’s new frontman Asbjorn Steffensen, too. Still more reason to await Come Forth Plague eagerly. Check it out below.

http://www.reverbnation.com/crocell/song/17098672-the-dark-i-will-inhale?1336410755
http://www.facebook.com/crocelldk