Crypt Sermon is a Phily based quintet, that released their first demo a couple of years ago and are now back with their debut. Featuring members of Ashencult, Hivelords, Infiltrator, Trenchrot, and Labyrinthine and drawing heavily upon Solitude Aeturnus, Candlemass, Mercyful Fate and Dio-era Black Sabbath, they come up with a rather inspired doom/classic metal hybrid, that’s quite interesting.
Drawing inspiration from Biblical stories, they come up with thick, lamenting, epic songs, with good riffs and occasionally good solos. Their singer Brooks Wilson, who also drew the cover of the album, sounds like a rough version of Rob Lowe, but I am guessing that if he’d drop the pretend gruffness in the voice, would sound better, singing in a cleaner demeanor.
Songs like “Temple Doors”, “Byzantium”, “The Master Bouquet” and “Out of the Garden”, amply display the bands ability to come up with impressive doomy tracks. Wherever, Wilson sounds cleaner in these too, he sounds, better too (in the middle of “OotG”, for instance), so I am guessing if they are more careful in that respect and produce the vocals a bit more, smoothing them out and come up with more of this, they could naturally evolve in a pretty major force in the doom genre… time will tell.
