MONGREL'S CROSS — Arcana, Scrying and Revelation (review)

MONGREL'S CROSS — Arcana, Scrying and Revelation album cover Album · 2020 · Thrash Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
Time Signature
What the metal may tell...

Genre: Blackened thrash metal

Mongrel's Cross have always been good at balancing black metal and thrash metal in a way that highlights elements from both genres. This was true of their previous releases, and it's also true of this release.

The album basically has a cold opening, as the opening track 'Suffer the Witch to Live' starts bang on (actually, all the songs have cold openings). Starting out as a midtempo affair, the song explodes right into a blastbeat-centric black metal section. Throughout it running time, the song changes back and forth in tempo and in style, oscillating between black metal and thrash metal. This dynamic characterizes the entire album and is one of the things that make it a particularly enjoyable listen to me. Another thing that I appreciate is that, while dark and aggressive, the compositions are also inherently very melodic in that many of the black metal sections will have built-in harmonies or tremolo-picked lead melodies on top of the riffs. The guitar solos are also mostly melodic although there are some elements of shredding in there as well. 'Fate of the Grail PT I' is a very good example of this melodicism although it is pretty much a characteristic of all the songs.

The production is crisp and actually quite bottom-heavy for a black metal-adjacent release, and the musicianship and songwriting also come across favorably. I can imagine that some listeners might find the screechy vocals a tad grating or cartoony, but maybe black metal fans will appreciate it. I personally don't have a problem with it although I admit that it does take some getting used to.

Overall, this is another solid effort by Mongrel's Cross and it's recommended to fans of thrash metal and melodic black metal alike.
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