Into the Crypts of Blasphemy

Interment existed already during the Swedish death metal boom in the early 90s, but it wasn’t until last year when their first proper full-length Into the Crypts of Blasphemy was released - so in a way, Interment isn’t just another newly found death metal group playing the same riffs that bands like Entombed and Grave played twenty years earlier...

...but that’s exactly what these veterans are still playing on Into the Crypts of Blasphemy: buzzsaw guitar tone and a murderous overall atmosphere that reeks of death. The production is they keyword here, it’s so killing - causing a feeling of choking - that I can’t but respect it. This is the true soundtrack for graveyards and corpses!

Compositionally, Into the Crypts of Blasphemy offers zero innovation but that is compensated by the sheer power of the instruments that are handled with solid and precise execution. What Interment also realizes to do is to keep the total playing time enough short to retain the music’s intensity throughout. Also, the apocalyptic and kind-of-melodic beginning of ”Sacrificial Torment” is a nice feature that soon after returns to the usual savage torture.

As was the case with the recently reviewed Puteraeon debut, there’s no way of recommending Into the Crypts of Blasphemy for those looking for interesting twists and surprising flavors in their death metal; this is pure old school death metal, made by the old schoolers for the old schoolers. The target audience is narrow but surely devoted and will rejoice what Interment presents here.

3 / 5
[ http://www.vehementconjuration.com/ ]

Ahhh yes... Swedish Death Metal in the Stockholm vein (*drools*). Interment were there around the time of its explosion, forming under the name Beyond in 1988, before changing their name and releasing three demos in the early nineties - though similarly to the awesome Nirvana 2002, they never released a full length album... that is, until now.

I first discovered Interment along with several other 'demo only' bands through Daniel Ekeroth's 'Swedish Death Metal' book, managing to track down some shitty MP3s of one of their earlier demos - truly slime-coated Swedish filth. I loved it. Thankfully, Necroharmonic did the right thing and re-issued all of their demo material in one compilation earlier this year, which served as a tasty appetizer for this their LONG awaited debut album on Pulverised Records (who, are releasing quality album after quality album in my opinion these days).

So, do the band shit all over their youthful enthusiasm of past demos by releasing a cackhanded, clueless shit fest? No, of course they don't. Even with 20 odd years passing since their formation, it's clear these guys still kept their Boss Heavy Metal's in a safe location, and a foot deeply entrenched in the underground. The guitar tone makes the album for me, keeping true to the old school's carcinogenic, putrefying bubbling pit of mess, but the actual riffwork is of a really good standard also thankfully, sending me on yet another archaic nostalgia trip to the days of badly dubbed tapes and hand-drawn gore ridden fliers.

There's no frills to be found here, I wouldn't want it any other way though. The fact that the like of Interment can re-animate themselves from the deep, cold earth to bash out a classy album such as this says a lot for the song writers and their well honed knowledge of the music they love to play. If you're looking for a good powerful kick from the crypt, this will undoubtedly sate your ravenous hunger

Originally written for www.metalteamuk.net

If I was to tell you Interment are a metal band formed in Sweden in the late 80s (1988) to be exact you think you'd be able to guess what they sound like? Yep, it may be 20-odd years later but here, at last, is the band's debut album, "Into the Crypts of Blasphemy", following just a few demos in the early 90s and it is 100% Swedish death metal to the core replete with that scene's trademark buzzsaw guitar tone, horrified vocals and organic drumsound. Like Nirvana 2002 whose compilation release I reviewed a while back, Interment will go down in history as an also-ran, but a testament to the devastating timeless power and appeal of the Swedish DM scene poised. Incase in you were in any doubt this is proven by how enjoyable Interment's album is to listen to (for a death metal like myself at least) without offering anything new on top of what the likes of Entombed and Dismember did two decades ago.

From the opening second of "Eternal Darkness" what is to come in the next 36 minutes is as obvious as the plotline in a porno. Picking highlights from the consistently pummelling racket is difficult, but for my money the ominous and catchy "Night of the Undead" shades it as the top song while "Dreaming In Dead" is something that wouldn't feel out of place on Dismember's classic "Like An Everflowing Stream". "Where Death Will Increase" rolls into action with a stupendously fat and groovy riff while "Morbid Death" and "The Pestilence" (two songs adding to the collection of tracks here referencing in name famous bands and albums of the past) close out in a blood-hungry manner, confident that the release has achieved its target of instigating a bloody hit-and-run attack on your senses. Just like Nirvana 2002's aforementioned attack "Into the Crypts of Blasphemy" comes laden with enjoyment for anyone into prime-time Entombed or Dismember, all the more impressive despite being a modern-day recording. From a European perspective at least, a reminder of how death metal used to be done.

Originally written for www.Rockfreaks.net

Hearing new Swedish death metal in this day and age is unexpected, to say the least. Most great Swedeath albums were released in the early 90s, and then it just stopped. Sure, some greats kept the genre alive, but there weren’t any more genre-defining albums being released. Well, this may not be a genre-defining album either, but it’s an incredibly refreshing, well-executed trip back down memory lane.

For starters, Interment has actually been around for a while, but this is their first full-length album. The band’s experience definitely shines here, as they easily create some fine Swedeath that is very true to its roots. The wonderfully evil-sounding Swedish trademark, the “buzzsaw” guitar tone, is present, and with modern production it sounds really good – clean enough to hear all of the riffs, but not pristine as if Andy Sneap produced it or something. That would have been awful!

This album is full of what makes Swedeath great – solid riffs, consistent yet good blastbeat-oriented drumming, and great guttural vocals. When I hear this, I think back to everything from Dismember to Entombed to Excruciate and realize that this style is one of the heaviest and most brutal full-on aural assaults in all of metal. While death metal from other regions may like to fiddle around with riff structure and atmosphere (not that that’s a bad thing), Swedeath likes the be straightforward, and I can appreciate that. The opening salvo on ‘Eternal Darkness’ lets you know from the second you turn this album on that you’re listening to that classic Swedish sound.

Of course, this album serves as more than just a nostalgia trip and a derivative clone of other better Swedeath bands. The riffs here are all catchy and very heavy (the heaviness is most prevalent on ‘Where Death Will Increase’), occasionally providing some intricacy and cleverness (most often when tremolo picked riffs are used, which are very nicely placed throughout the songs here). The solos are all very well written–frantic enough to fit with the general chaotic sound of the album, yet also organized and concise. Solos are not a particularly defining aspect of Swedeath, so it wouldn’t be good of Interment was wasting their time on meandering wank solos. In fact, I find these solos to be quite tasteful.

One thing that the production on this album really lets you see is the influence of punk on the Swedeath sound. Of course, punk led to thrash which led to death metal, but Swedeath in particular has a punk-ish vibe to it. On older albums, the production might have obscured this fact, but with the more modern, clear production, the guitars are more audible and you can really hear the influence. It’s a small detail to bring up, but it’s nice to hear.

The best tracks here are probably ‘Stench Of Flesh’ and ‘Sacrificial Torment,’ but everything here is solid. The thing about old school death metal is that there really isn’t much “bad” death metal. At it’s very worst, it’s at least average. While this album is standard-fare Swedish death metal, it’s incredibly refreshing to hear an album like this being made in 2010. It relies heavily on the Swedeath sound already established 20 years ago, but at the same time, Interment created a great modernized version of it. It may not be a top-tier Swedeath album, nor is it particularly original, but in such a bad year as this, it’ll definitely top some best-of lists at the end of the year, while also being a great release in its own right.

Written for http://thenumberoftheblog.com/

Interment is another Swedish revival act following the classic Swedish death metal sounds of Entombed, Dismember, Grotesque, and others, but the catch here is that the band actually existed during the crux of it all, forming in 1988 and producing a number of demos in the 90s before the inevitable breakup. The band resurfaced on a 2007 split with NJ old school act Funebrarum and then a compilation of the original demos earlier this year. When I tell you that 3/4ths of the current lineup are from Centinex and Demonical, with alumni from Uncanny and Dellamorte, it becomes all the more reason to get excited.

It also becomes very predictable as to what this album should sound like. It sounds like Nihilist, Dismember, Carnage and Left Hand Path, with the familiar, thick guitar tone, d-beat rhythms mixed with old school fast breaks, and vocals that sound like an angrier L-G Petrov in his youth. Thankfully, the album is largely newer material, and not just another endless rehash of the demo material, with the exception of "Where Death Will Increase" from the band's first 1991 demo under this name (they were formerly Beyond). The dark atmosphere to this album churns the grave dirt from which the dead rise when called, and I'd compare it to another recent offering, Rotten Death by Tormented, a band featuring ex-members of Edge of Sanity and others.

For what it's worth, Into the Crypts of Blasphemy does rock pretty hard, so if you sport a major hard on for its spiritual influence Left Hand Path, I see no reason you couldn't dive right into the grim sepulchers and mobile animated frames that haunt this band's lyrical universe. "Dreaming in Dead" and "Sacrificial Torment" are both excellent tracks that took me right back to around 1990, with powerful momentum and grooving rhythms that can satiate both the restless dead and the mosh pit of the living. "Night of the Undead", "The Pestilence", and "Morbid Death" are also fit for the charnel house, a dense velocity powering each swing of the butcher's knife as he hacks and maims tall corpses for short coffins.

Interment is derivative, but at the same they've got a bigger claim to this old sound than the usual upstart, as they were actually there in the middle of it all. Do you mind more of the same? If this is not a problem for you, and you treasure the Swedish roots and a decent songwriting effort, then there's no real reason for you to skip out on this album, because it hits the right notes at the right time and benefits from a morbid, crushing mix that will satisfy you. But if you seek innovation and a push of the envelope, you're probably roaming through the wrong cemetery.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com