In the whole “doom” spectrum, there are either the bands that follow a more stoner & funeral style, with slow riffing, sludgy sound and heaviness being the proponent of their sound or the ones that subscribe in the 80s Sabbath/Candlemass school, of more lyrical, lamenting, epic heavy metal, with dark subject matters.
Crypt Cermon one would say are closer to the latter than the former, but Brooks Wilson’s voice doesn’t have the clarity and ring of most of the vocalists that really shone in the genre. That doesn’t mean however that it’s bad. His somewhat lower tone is greatly compensated by an Oliva like shriek, he’s able to infuse his performances with, making him sound like some long lost cousin of Morgana Lefay’s Charles Rytkönen, which is cool I suppose.
Little to none has changed on this sophomore effort, since 2015’s “Out of the Garden” in terms of musical form, I suppose. The only certain thing is that with the addition of a dedicated bassist the band now sounds even more certain of its footing and confident in their performances.
Opener “The Ninth Templar (Black Candle Flame)” sounds massive and very much like something that would have totally felt at home on Candlemass’ “Epicus, Doomicus, Metallicus”. It’s that good.
“Key of Solomon” meanders almost aimlessly through its verses, on the strength of a pretty cool riff, but seems to go nowhere, until a hymnal chorus manages to resolve the tension that is formulated in its six minutes.
“Our Reverend’s Grave” tries to perform a hat trick, but marginally fails, due to the lack of a memorable chorus. Its pathos carries it along, but only barely.
“Epochal Vestiges” is a mysterious sounding transitional piece that leads into the heavy and oratorical “Christ Is Dead”, which unfortunately doesn’t quite deliver upon its initial promise, despite an interesting chorus that’s delivered a little more gleefully, than one would expect from a song with such a title.
“The Snake Handler” offers more of the same, with a slightly more convincing chorus, but still leaving something to be desired.
“Oath of Exile” is another acoustic transitory piece that leads into “Enslave the Heathens”, which appears to be an except lifted from some period movie and in turn it leads into “Beneath the Torchfire Glare”, a massive seven and a half minute epic that thankfully manages to recapture, the splendor of the album’s opening tracks, with its boisterous riff and persistent bridge/chorus that Wilson screams at the top of his lungs.
Last but not least, the title track, “The Ruins of Fading Light”, in its eight minutes of splendor, manages to also equal the better tracks on the album, despite taking its dear sweet time to actually begin pommeling the truths of the damned in.
A fairly accomplished, if not slightly uneven follow up to a highly regarded debut; “The Ruins of Fading Light”, manages to keep the torch lit for this interesting and promising band in the classic doom metal genre.
