CAMBION
ConflagrateThe Celestial Refugium
LAVADOME
Diehard death worship from the Lone Star State
Death metal has mutated into so many different forms over the decades that it’s easy to forget how disgustingly effective the original blueprints were. Cambion proudly salute the days of all-out war and Satanic bombast, when bands like Angelcorpse cranked up the genre’s speed to absurd new levels, often wearing spiked armour. This, as they say, is the real fucking thing. Uncompromising from beginning to end, Conflagrate The Celestial Refugium is all about bloody, jagged riffs, spinesnapping hyperblasts and a menacing, infernal atmosphere. From the heads-down violence of the opening title track to the more opaque battery of Eiton Euclarion, the Texans’ debut is old school in spirit but precise, dynamic and sonically devastating too. Only closer Obscuratio allows the pace to drop, but its slithering, nightmarish nine minutes are arguably the heaviest and most terrifying thing here.