Crejuvent is a one-person project that
recently released put forth a 20+ minute demo entitled “Pretty Demos”.
Typically it is easiest to describe demo bands by attaching subgenre labels and
making comparisons to other bands, but that won’t do for Crejuvent.
Nevertheless, I’ll be trying anyways! At its core, the band’s music is
certainly based in technical death metal, but it also offers much more. There
is plenty of virtuosity showed on “Pretty Demos” (this becomes evident quite
quickly in the opening track “Dualism”, and especially in the bass-guitar
driven “Projection”). With that said, the demo isn’t a Brain Drill-like experience
of sweeping or blasting.
Perhaps the biggest thing that separates
Crejuvent from their peers is their use of clean vocals. These sections are
interwoven into the music pretty seamlessly; in other words, Crejuvent doesn’t
play 3 minutes of technical death metal followed by a 2-minute clean interlude.
Instead, half of one riff/section of a song will be comprised of a death metal
riff, whereas the next half will be more atmospheric and utilize clean vocals. This
is a unique and refreshing approach because it makes the songs feel more
cohesive and less like two different ideas mashed together. Although the harsh
vocals are incredibly brutal, the clean vocals are quite mellow. In fact, an
apt comparison would be to something like Obscura or The Faceless, where the
singing doesn’t show a particularly wide range, but instead offers supporting
melodies to the rest of the music.
The best song on this demo is the
aforementioned “Projection”. Fans of Atheist will especially dig this track
because of the proficiency of the bass playing. For those familiar with the
short-lived obscure project Sunken Colony, you can expect something similar to
that band’s demo on this track. It is probably also the most straight forward track on the demo. “Epitamorph” is pretty enjoyable too because
some of its riffs are more on the thrashy side of things and it can get quite aggressive
at times.
Overall, “Pretty Demos” is definitely a
unique experience. No one generalization or comparison can really sum up
Crejuvent, so it’s best to take a listen if any of the bands mentioned above
appeal to you. This demo is most likely to appeal to fans of technical death
metal, but it has so much to offer that all fans of extreme metal should check
it out.
Highlight
"Projection"
Final Rating
3.75/5 or 75%.
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