As the metal year comes to a close, Indian outfit Chronic Xorn give it one final ravenous tempest of sound and craft in the shape of their new album For These Sins Who Must Die. 2017 has been a rather eventful affair with some majorly striking encounters along its way but has saved one of its finest moments until its last few breaths for a release which should thrust the Kolkata hailing quintet towards major awareness and attention.
Formed in 2007, Chronic Xorn has nurtured and become a portent presence within their national metal scene, previous releases in debut EP Death.Destruction.Sermon of 2010 and first album From Mercy two years later reinforcing the raw power and craft of their death metal/ deathcore blend and pushing their emerging stature. The time is ripe for the band to stir up broader recognition and it is hard to suggest or expect For These Sins Who Must Die will not to be the incendiary spark. Dedicated to the band’s deceased close friend Abhishek Bhattacharya who penned all the album’s lyrics, the band’s self-released proposition looks at the oppressed in life; vocalist Saptadip Chakrabarty explaining more with “History reveals that in every religion, community and caste, there has always been a major race of common people, those who suffer and rot under the reign of a corrupted helm. Unwillingly their blood spills as the ever deceitful leader smiles away to glory. This album speaks about all those commoners, who are helplessly handcuffed by societal pressure. Their voices choke under the smoke of fraudulence.”
The scene is set through the album’s intro, Doctrine Of Hate a beguiling melodic lure with thick shadows to its beauty and portentous clouds to its atmosphere. As ears, the imagination is drawn and consumed by its creative and suggestive drama, the track growing resourcefully into the album’s title track. For These Sins Who Must Die instantly grips the appetite, its nagging senses winding grooves and rapacious rhythms instinctive incitement as the venomously toned vocal squalls of Chakrabarty, backed as potently by those of guitarist Suvam Moitra, crawl through the tempest. The guitars of Moitra and Biswarup Bardhan continue to manipulate the song’s evolving landscape with inventive dexterity, the song almost kaleidoscopic in its adventure and nature.
It is a tremendous start to the album which is only continued by the following Necropolis Iii. The crisp rhythmic bait of drummer Dipayan Chakraborty draws the listener into the waiting fire of sound and vocals, the bass of Soumyadeep Das providing a gnarly growl to the blaze as grooves twang and groan as melodies sear and entice. There are certainly familiar elements flaming away within the song and indeed album but all seared with a character and tone belonging to Chronic Xorn to add to the ingredients already individual to them.
Next up Justice By The Act Of Violence is a savage fury careering through ears with nostrils flared but just as adept at shifting through the gears and surrounding the senses in memorable enterprise. Saptadip Chakrabarty again simply magnetises with the similarly tempting cauldron of sound and imagination getting under the skin like a relentless itch. It is a one of the major qualities of Chronic Xorn’s music, a niggly attribute which you cannot avoid or ignore, nor want to, which constant scratching through listens only makes things more compelling.
Vox Populi is unsurprisingly no different, its traits and features an appetite harrying trespass within a bullish roar led by Saptadip Chakrabarty’s raw throat and emotion. Grooves cast a web of deceit, as invasive as they are deliciously seductive and more than backed by the rapier swings of Dipayan Chakraborty and Das’ deep bass trespasses. Moments of melodic calm and elegance only add to the temptation; eventful breakdowns and rapacious twists creating an imposing clamour as severely ferocious as it is inescapably captivating.
The track’s final sonic sigh is the trigger for the hellacious onslaught of closing track, The Last Stand. Tension seeps from every note and syllable spawned within four minutes of predacious intent, the band’s imagination with riffs, grooves, and rhythms stalking and hunting down the senses within a theatre of melodic endeavour. As individual and united flair scorches ears, band and song simply bully the body and ignite the imagination, encouraging a lust for much more by the album’s close.
As for us, For These Sins Who Must Die is likely to be an introduction to Chronic Xorn for a great and increasing many and hopefully the real awakening to one rather impressive proposition within the metal world.
For These Sins Who Must Die is available now @ https://chronicxorn.bandcamp.com/releases
https://www.facebook.com/chronicxorn/ https://www.instagram.com/chronicxorn/
Pete RingMaster 19/12/2017
Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright
Aizawl based again, Third Sovereign intrigue the imagination with opening introduction Sakei Ai Hla, voices in threat or calling, hard to know, leading the listener towards and into the brewing tempest of Grave of Humanity and an irritable climate of intimidating riffs and towering intensity. A few moments more and the track is rampaging with thick spicy grooves entwining thumping rhythms and rabid riffs. As vocalist Vedant prowls proceedings with his grizzly guttural tones, thrash bred fuel flows to incite and power the increasingly gripping provocation masterly coloured by guitarist Benjamin and given compelling bulk by bassist Jonah within Reuben’s skeletal rhythmic frame.
wrapping sonic tendrils around the senses whilst expanding a melodic enterprise through reserved but open grooves and instantly persuasive riffing. It is a magnetic entrance which lures thoughts and emotions into the heart of the melodic and groove metal mix brought with predatory energy and breath. A sudden dip into melodic elegance opens the door for a torrent of rapacious provocation, riffs and the heavy growls of Venkatraman spawning rabidity in the track as it goes straight for the jugular. It is an intensive evocation which commands the senses before without warning diving into a progressive and melodic stretch of beauty and mesmeric seduction. This is subsequently entwined within the sinew driven death bred aggression of before to ignite an even greedier hunger for the song. Only half way in and the encounter has taken the breath away with its power and invention, something which never relents up to the final second of the six minute plus tempting. Nothing on the song is repeated beyond the passage seeding any particular moment and along with the excellent vocal fusion of guttural vitriol and clean melodic deliveries impressively helps drive the song straight into the passions. Like a union of Motherjane, Bhayanak Maut, and Opeth but with much more uniqueness, it is a rigorously incendiary and thrilling start to the release.
