As confirmed with considerable fury on 2018’s Specter Of War EP, Creeping Death are zealous advocates of Swedish death metal’s legendary buzzsaw bluster, something that could be said about countless HM-2 devotees the world over. However, what the band have also mastered on their debut full length is a ruthlessly direct songwriting approach that informed the seminal likes of Grave and early Sepultura, all underpinned by an extra nitro-boost of high-velocity thrash and double dipped in subterranean terror.
Indeed, any of those scoffing about a lack of originality will be choking on their teeth mere seconds into ‘Ripping Through Flesh’, five minutes of excoriating brutality which bulges with multi-tempo flair and rhythmic destruction. Their stall firmly set out, Creeping Death embark on the sort of thoroughly satisfying death metal journey we would expect from bands thrice their age and experience. From the hardcore-tinged bellicosity of ‘World Decay’ and ‘Peeled From Reality’s ferocious nose-flattening rampage, the whole heat-blasted shebang is delivered with unnerving levels of aggression, and, from what we can only imagine given the joyously ‘come and have a go if you think your metal enough’ approach of Wretched Illusions, a big shit-eating grin on the Texans faces.
Flailing speed, hammering grooves, and with the very spirit of the death metal underground coursing through its veins, this is forty minutes of endlessly gratifying violence.
Wretched Illusions is out now and can be purchased here.
Words: Tony Bliss
