Mental Crypt

Extreme Unction

(c)(p)1998 Black Mark Production

Review by Neil St.Laurent

We reviewed a demo from Mental Crypt over a year ago and were fairly impressed by what we heard; "Extreme Unction" does much to keep us fairly pleased with the band. Mental Crypt managed to seal a deal with Black Mark almost a year ago, and although not a typical band for the label, definitely a band that improves their roster.

Being a part of the new generations of death metal, Mental Crypt has no problem adding a little variation to the music and doesn't mind playing with the sound a little bit. The most classic element that will come out of this release (and came from the demo as well) are the opening vocals on "Genocide": considering what the song is about the generally happy and melodic sing-along style opening vocals are oddly disturbing. Mental Crypt doesn't have much of a problem mixing together various tempos and style to achieve a sound, that although quite original, may not be consistant enough to call their own -- for many this will be a good thing as so many bands fall into a lifeless rut of producing the same sound over and over again. The mixture of styles comes generally from metal and death metal, never too overly extreme however, which may make it appealing to many of the non-death listeners. Needless to say the music is driven by a couple of guitars that churn out riff after riff, either of a rhytmic flow or of a lead artifact of interest (complete with solos even). Even during transitions from segment to segment the guitars manage to keep the music very much active, therefore Mental Crypt has a very complete sound and doesn't fall victim to a highly segmented sound, or broken sound (at some points this is a little better than others).

The only drawback about "Extreme Unction" and Mental Crypt is that aside from all their unique components (which survived from the demo), the remaining music won't really stand out in a crowd. That is, while Mental Crypt is a good band it would be hard to give a single reason as to why you should buy their CD over another band in the same genre. Nonetheless Mental Crypt will not disappoint you; if you like this kind of music you won't have any reason why not to like "Extreme Unction".

Mental Crypt is:
H. Bryngfors - Vocals
J. Janson - Guitar
S-E. Fritiofsson - Guitar
U. Jansson - Bass
K. Elmlund - Drums

Contact:
Web: http://www.alfaskop.net/~fritte/mental/

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