Dead Congregation - "Graves Of The Archangels"

It is the year 2008, and, following its heyday in the early ‘90s, death metal has become quite stagnant over the last ten years. A few bands including Immolation and The Chasm have remained consistent through the late ‘90s and into this decade, and a handful of newer bands such as Funebrarum, Necros Christos, or Slugathor have arisen in attempts to revive old school death metal; however, the scene remains but a shadow of its old form. Thankfully, an exception to this standard now exists with the release of Dead Congregation’s Graves of the Archangels, an album that effectively recalls the listener to the glory days of occult death metal.

Graves of the Archangels is primarily influenced by the early works of NYDM legends Incantation and Immolation, with downtuned riffs and pinch harmonics in the vein of Immolation’s Dawn of Possession and doomy breaks and low guttural vocals reminiscent of Incantation’s Onward to Golgotha or Mortal Throne of Nazarene. For instance, the final minute of “Vanishing Faith” bears similarities to Immolation tracks such as “Into Everlasting Fire” while the interlude of “Source of Fire” may remind listeners of the similarly doomy section of Incantation’s “Christening the Afterbirth.” 

Despite these obvious influences, Dead Congregation’s music is not entirely devoid of originality. Firstly, this album is more varied as a whole than its primary influences; where the early doom-influenced death metal bands including Autopsy and Asphyx as well as Incantation and Immolation all delivered brutal chunks of death metal in the form of ten or eleven consecutive 3-5 minute songs, Dead Congregation offers a more uniquely structured debut. The album deviates from standard extreme metal by the inclusion of an opening instrumental, two lengthy tracks, and even an abnormally brief track.

The album begins with the five minute instrumental “Martyrdoom” that contains three separate movements in which the lead guitar slowly builds on the dissonant and foreboding rhythm track with eerie leads until the track culminates in an ominous chant over noisy guitar feedback. This chant foreshadows the upcoming aural assault as four traditional fast-to-mid-paced death metal tracks immediately follow. After these four tracks, the album may seem to be a mere mimicry of Incantation and Immolation blended together aside from the unique “Martyrdoom”; however, the title track enters next to highlight Dead Congregation’s creativity and songwriting ability. Clocking in at eight minutes, the track begins with another foreboding chant before plunging into several minutes of non-repetitive and flowing death/doom. Following this track is the brief one-minute onslaught entitled “Subjugation”, an entirely fast-paced piece contrasted with the monolithic title track. Finally, following “Source of Fire”, the lengthy outro “Teeth Into Red” wraps up the album with another helping of pure death metal followed by a repetitive tremolo-picked riff that showcases the band’s black metal influences as well as death metal influences.

In addition to its musical merits, Graves of the Archangels also has essentially flawless production. The guitar tone is more thick and lively than that of early Incantation releases while not being as suffocating and dense as later Immolation or Ignivomous. The vocals are morbid and near indiscernible as death vox should be, without being overly guttural as is the case with brutal death metal. The drumming is neither too loud nor too quiet.

In summary, while Dead Congregation brings nothing groundbreaking to the table but another take on the styles of doomy death metal legends, their execution is simply perfect, to the extent that, if one were to disregard historical relevance and examine only pure musical quality, Graves of the Archangels would easily rank amongst the best of the classics.