Coffin Texts - The Tomb of Infinite Ritual

While the East Coast has Immolation, Incantation, Symphony of Grief and Morpheus Descends (among others) to bolster its ranks in the "evil sounding" death metal department, the bands on the West Coast are no slouches either. With Sadistic Intent, Infamy and Coffin Texts, the Los Angeles death metal scene has more than sufficiently proven its worth in the war against heaven.

Coffin Texts flawlessly executes a style of death metal close to my heart. That hauntingly evil style that equally incorporates doom and dissonance. Kind of like 'Dawn of Possession' era Immolation crashing into 'War Master' era Bolt Thrower. Perfect!

Perhaps the biggest difference between the East Coast and its Western counterparts are the vocals. Where most East Coast blasphemous death mongers prefer the thunderous low toned growls such as those supplied by the likes of Craig Pillard, Andy Markert or John Paradiso, the Westerners incorporate a more "witchier" style into their blend of evil death. Coffin Texts' Robert Cardenas has a vocal style not far removed from that of David Vincent on 'Altars of Madness'.

Musically, Coffin Texts are a chockfull of vile emotions, which, I must say, have hardly had many opportunities to rear their ugly heads. Many, many bands as of late have been catching a free ride on the "evil death metal" express but not a whole few of them are truly capable of trudging across the frozen wasteland to do real battle such as the likes of Coffin Texts. Every riff and drum beat to answer them are absolutely stellar and filled with loathing. This is the kind of death metal that rarely comes around and when it does, most idiots out there usually do not see it for what it is, instead opting to label them as a Nile rip off (??!!) merely because both bands have went down the egyptology route. Believe me folks. Nile and Coffin Texts sound nothing alike. While Nile may have their moments, Coffin Texts' riffs are filled to the brim with atmosphere and tortured dynamics. Nile are usually too busy finger fucking the necks of their guitars to come up with the evil and blasphemous shit that Coffin Texts has been conjuring fourth since day one.

While it seems that, once again, the world at large has remained willfully ignorant of Coffin Texts' existence and output, I for one hail the achievements of this mighty band and absolutely cannot wait for album number three. Hopefully it doesn't take nearly as long to arrive as this one did.