As their name portends, the southern California band Crawling Through Tartarus, whose music straddles a line between contemporary death metal and deathcore, have drawn inspiration from ancient Greek mythology, with a particular relish for the most brutal and hellish aspects of those old tales, as proclaimed in their name itself.
But while the band wish to lead us into the deepest region of the infernal underworld where the gods internally imprisoned their enemies and ruthlessly punished the wicked, they don’t… crawl. Their music does succeed in creating hellish experiences, but their forte is bludgeoning listeners within an inch of their lives.
One example of what we mean is a song off their self-titled debut album, released earlier this year, that’s the subject of the lyric video we’re premiering today. In a nutshell, it’s a bone-smashing groove monster, albeit one that becomes haunting before the end.
The name of the song is “The Fall of Atlas“, and the band describe its subject matter in these words:
Atlas was punished by Zeus and was told to bear the weight of the world for all Eternity. After so long of doing this a Traveler came across Atlas the Titan and used a special blade to sever his hands from his arms.
We wrote about this because sometimes we are given too much to bear and wonder what would happen if we just let go. The song has a great Greek Mythology background to it that can be interpreted in the modern day.
Having chosen a song about a fallen Titan, it’s fitting that the grooves which form the core of the song are themselves titanic. The instruments sound like the sequential staccato pounding of a phalanx of jackhammers and pile-drivers deployed with ruinous intent. It will get your muscles twitching and your spine shaking.
The words are proclaimed through monstrous growls and hair-raising howls. In keeping with the harrowing and hopeless nature of the lyrics, the band embellish their brute-force inflictions of sonic trauma with fretwork that seems to moan, wail, and skitter like fevers in the blood. Near the end the band also bring in ethereal chiming tones that are haunting, slowly flowing in their grief across the electrifying pulverization that’s going on beneath them.
For more info about the band’s debut album and their other activities, check out the links below (after you’ve picked up your teeth from the floor).
BAND SOCIALS:
Official: https://cttofficial.com/
LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/CrawlingThroughTartarus
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/crawlingthroughtartarus
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/crawlingthroughtartarus/
BAND STREAMING:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3yMLmuaon3N5Ksd1MZosqX?si=bvUmZxviRTuV6RanjRLOwg
Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/crawling-through-tartarus/1527946382
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMlTXxcuhYLYQcoHmHgKKhQ