Cambion
- Conflagrate The Celestial Refugium
USA
Lavadome
Productions
“Conflagrate
The Celestial Refugium” is the debut album from these Texas based
maniacs and is a profoundly hard-hitting and militant slab of
Black/Death. The musicianship on this album is as tight as it gets,
including the fact that the music is utterly ferocious, with the bulk
of the music consisting of blazing fast drums, shredding riffs, and
evil vocals that are more akin to black metal. Essentially, the
output has more in common with death metal (at least musically),
although there is a fair amount of black metal in their veins, at
least in terms of atmosphere. In my opinion, anyone who likes bands
like Angelcorpse, Force of Darkness and Infernal War will go
absolutely nuts over this, as this album delivers the goods. I'm not
saying the band sounds like the aforementioned bands, but they are
definitely on par with them in terms of intensity. The music is truly
fast for the most part. But not in a bland sense, as each track is
peppered with tempo changes and solos that make the music way more
interesting than the usual "fast-all-the-time" brutal
black/death band. There is enough variety in the songs to maintain a
consistent flow and not become repetitive. Slower parts are well
interspersed and used to break up the intensity a bit while still
keeping it relentless and crushing. I have read a few comments
comparing Cambion to Angelcorpse, which is fair enough, though they
are far from being called "Angelcorpse worship" as they
have a sound all their own that is easily identifiable when you
actually listen to their music. There are a myriad of interesting and
razor-sharp, flesh-piercing solos, and it's even more impressive
considering the band only consists of three members, and considering
all the chaos you're being subjected to literally comes from one guitarist
backed by a maniacal battery, incendiary drumming and hate spewing
vocals. The bass is also very involved in the mix and makes a
valuable contribution to the execution. It's a thorough and
well-executed display of bludgeoning and vicious black/death that
deserves to be heard and is a prime example of proper American
black/death. Cambion fucking slays! (HT)