Looking at the band’s name, release title and cover, it’s not hard to see where Crescent is moving. Lyrically at least. Ancient Egypt and its mythology got the interest of another band, which in this case originates from the same country.
They started in distant 1999 with a demo, it took them ten years to release their first EP, while their first full-length album, “Pyramid Slaves”, was released in 2014. “Carving The Fires Of Akhet” is their third album, which succeeds “The Order Of Amenti” of 2018. Now the quartet is based in Germany, having two members from there who recently joined the band.
Musically, Crescent plays black/death metal with a lot of oriental elements (obviously), both in riffs and in various samples/chants. I would not say that they remind me very much of Nile’s brutal death metal musically (although there are clear influences), but in the vocals of the only founding member (and guitarist) Ismaeel Attallah which are quite brutal for most of the album.
They go more to the style of Behemoth with several riffs close to Melechesh, in which their bassist Stefan Dietz is a session musician for concerts. The album as a whole is a good and organized effort, if one sees all its contributors, but it gives me the feeling of being unconnected.
What I mean? The tracks seem to consist of scattered ideas without coherence. The slow parts follow the fast ones very abruptly without any connection, in which in fact the band seems to blast just for the sake of blasting, without distinguishing anything special through the chaos.
And I cannot say that they do not have nice ideas. Some riffs are awesome, the technique of the members is remarkable and the atmospheres are very interesting. But listening to it from beginning to end, it seems like a stitching of many different ideas without the missing link between them. Maybe listening to it again and again it will change my mind, but as a first impression it gives me the feeling of being disconnected.
