Lancement Symphonique et Chaotique

I was pleased to see that Cryptik Howling made the nine-something hour trip south from Rouyn-Noranda to come play Café Chaos for their CD release of « Synthetic Ascension Design ».  Only three bands on the bill, I knew that they were going to get their time into play a good set.

 

 

The show started out with Godless Requiem from Blainville, Quebec.  They filled up every inch of the stage with 6 members to this band.  Their style is melodic symphonic death metal with a hint of folk.  I was expecting a black metal band to open this show and even though stylistically they didn’t really fit with the lineup they were very entertaining and had excellent musicianship.  The main vocal has a deep death growl but audible enough to make out a lot of lyrics, combine with the lead guitarist with a higher toned backing death vocal.  The bass and drums keep a fast paced driving technical punch, which were melded with shredding clean melodic duel guitars and topped with sweeping arpeggios.  The final touch to this band is the heavily layered keyboards that really give a complete sound to this style.  I felt if they could improve anywhere it would be to play more together as a band. I know Café Chaos doesn’t have a lot of room on stage, but that didn’t stop the main vocalist from moving around as much as he could and bringing a good energy to the crowd.  I found the rest of the members were rather complacent.  With this kind of energy to the music, it would have been more fitting to see them all getting way more into it.  With that being said however they had a great sound and played a tight set.  If you are fans of bands like Ensiferum and Norther this is a band I am sure you would enjoy.

 

 

Next up was Erimha from Montreal. These guys looked like they had just crawled out of the grave to tell us tales of misanthropic darkness. Covered in full corpse paint and ripped tattered clothing, they really set an ambiance of death.  They are in the style of symphonic melodic blackened death. When these guys started to play I was hit with a massive intensity of sound and to achieve this in Café Chaos was impressive. The main vocals are dark, aggressively brutal ranging from guttural lows to high pitched screams also making use of the other members doing backing vocals. As well as perfectly placed melancholic clean vocals come in at times.  The guitars range from shredding tremolo black metal riffs, to singing melodic harmonies, backed by blasting death drumming and symphonic keyboard samples.  This band has incorporated a lot of elements that make this band not just your typical local band.  For this style they are a cut above for sure and I feel have a great future if they continue in this path.  Live they were flawless giving a very entrancing performance. This is a band to not let pass by without giving them a good listen and well worth the money to see live.  They successfully took me on a journey through atramentous visions of deprave malevolence that lurks deep inside us all.

 

 

 

Headliner of the night was Cryptik Howling hailing from the grim north of Rouyn-Noranda. Here tonight to bring us their third full length release, « Synthetic Ascension Design ».  Having Erimha playing before them was an excellent choice since stylistically these bands go hand in hand. Crytick Howling is also in the style of Symphonic melodic black death metal.  I was once again hit with a wall of intense black metal brutality. Blasting drums, shredding blacken guitar riffs, symphonic keyboard samples, with a fierce grim varied black metal vocal attack. The other members are also used in layering backing vocals at times.  Flowing from prevailing intensity to melodic slowdowns, the music really keeps great continuity.  I felt I was being taking down some bereaved road being led from my past existence. Dressed in what looks to be jail type clothing, if you were sentenced in some subterranean dungeon of Hades.  The vocalist is a manifested creature of what I imagine would be the sight seen standing before me to take me from my physical form to what hell awaits absent this existence.  There was not a moment I was not entranced by the music and stage performance.   This was a night of local symphonic black death metal at its finest!

 

~Krystal Koffin