Crypt Of Kerberos - World Of Myths

Re-released and remastered by Pulverised Records as digipack with bonus tracks recently, this was originally released in 1993. Crypt of Kerberos are from Sweden and the bands earlier material was doom/death but slightly more progressive in nature. Some of the tunes here like ‘Cyclone of Insanity’ show that marginal progressive nature starting to peak through, especially with the vocal delivery that in some notes reminds me of Nevermore. Listen to the intro to ‘Dream…’, the phased/delayed effect guitar sound has an outer space feel, the doom death vocals are mixed with clean vocals but it is not until the speed picks up that the real gritty stuff happens. You can probably guess these are old recordings, the style if quite applicable to the early 1990’s, more so of a time when pure rotten aggression was starting to change and bands were experimenting more, although there is not the dramatic change here applicable as was to say early to current Therion!

The progressive tendencies of this band are not like those typical jazzy moments that Atheist are famed for, far from it, the Crypt of Kerberos style has more textures backed with keyboards, more virtuoso guitar riffing and picking, more musical I suppose. There is evidence on some of these tracks that band do lose their way, it goes too far sometimes into the stratosphere of virtuoso styles, however, on the whole, the songs are good, although I am not convinced with the quality of the recorded sound of the tracks at the tail end of the re-release. The vocals and percussion/timekeeping section of the group are totally lost by the overbearing loud mix and gruff often undecipherable vocals. This leads the bonus versions (assumed original or demo versions) of ‘The Canticle’ and ‘Stormbringer’ to lose their meaning.


All in all, this is a band worth checking out, I don’t feel there is a great deal to get too excited about, but what there is here is pretty good considering it is not new material.


[embed]https://www.youtube.com/v/tZqFcFt_sIw[/embed]

  1. The Canticle
  2. Cyclone Of Insanity
  3. Dream…
  4. Stormbringer
  5. The Ancient War
  6. Nocturnal Grasp
  7. The Sleeping God
  8. World Of Myths
  9. The Canticle (bonus track)
  10. World Of Myths (bonus track)
  11. Nocturnal Grasp (bonus track)
  12. Stormbringer (bonus track)
  13. Ancient War (bonus track)
  14. Cyclone Of Insanity (bonus track)
  15. Dream…(bonus track)