Six years spent sleeping in swampy, filth-infested undergrowth could cover an organism in moss and leave it to rot away for a lifetime. Thankfully, Sweden’s CRAWL come loaded with buzzsaws on Altar Of Disgust to cut through the vegetation thickening taking place in their forest, delivering a deliriously distinguished deathened crust-punk masterclass as a follow-up to 2018’s Rituals.
Vocalist Joachim Lyngfelt brushes off the cobwebs and breathes life back into CRAWL with a blistering ‘blegh’ on opener Undead Crypts, before Throne Of Molten Bones’ primal blast beats tear chunks of flesh from limb, as distortedly warping dissonance carves out space for Lyngfelt’s venomous bark to leave bite marks on your soul.
If you’ve missed being beaten into submission by crust-infused D-beats and death metal, Altar Of Disgust scratches the itches NAILS and VALLENFYRE leave you irritated by. Like those bands, CRAWL chop up the pace like you’re downing double vodka and Red Bulls on a night out; Curse Of The Morbid’s skull-bludgeoning blasts, that blur the line between blast beats and D-beats, speed up your heartbeat just to slow it back down with Ethereal Depths’ thickly-cut sludge and landmine-exploding drum fills. Who thought wallowing in filth could look and feel this fun?
CRAWL distinguish Altar Of Disgust from its peers with its mature approach to structure. Sure, its songs seethe with venomous aggression, yet it’s cinematic in scope. Halfway marker Where No Light Escapes trades in horror movie suspense — tribal beats echoing off into the distance, looping dissonant riffs and bleeding basslines make the skin crawl, and radio static voiceovers put you on edge — before Enslaved In Filth does just that, tearing limb from limb with a poison-tongued delivery so fiery you’ll come over with a fever; it’s an industrial war machine of a track chugging and chomping its way through the streets of riffs with a riled-up rhythm section delivering blow after blow, a tank loaded with unlimited ammo.
Elsewhere, Into Sordid Rifts drags you down into its swamp-infested depths, as D-beat style drums swim in sludgy distortion, interchanging wailing black metal howls with sinister hardcore-infused death growls before closer Buried Lust leads in with an album-defining voiceover: “If I started murdering people, there’d be no one left” — a sentiment that truly encapsulates the fire Altar Of Disgust lights inside you.
As long as they don’t let another six years float on by between records, Altar Of Disgust is undeniable proof that CRAWL could not only be deathened crust-punk revivalists, but flagbearers for the future of the scene.
Rating: 8/10
Altar Of Disgust is set for release on May 3rd via Transcending Obscurity Records.
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