Whenever I'm given an album to talk about and I see under genre: Death Metal, I tend to be a little displeased. I like my Death Metal, but lately all new bands seem to sound the same, trying to get as low as they can while playing as fast as they can. Then CULT OF ENDTIME came around, this Finnish band's debut album "In Charnel Lights" was a nice breather and something I didn't even realise I was looking for. To lay down some ground rules, this album is Death Metal, this album is also very not Death Metal... Are you confused yet?

CULT OF ENDTIME play Death Metal with specific other elements always present. The music tends to have a slower Sludge Metal or Doom Metal beat to it while keeping true to what Death Metal is, there's also some straight Death Metal, which is one of the first things you'll hear at the beginning of "A Vast Cosmic Horror" (which is an awesome song name). The introduction sounds Death Metal as fuck with almost a Chris Barnes style of frog croak. Between the guitars playing slower but still obviously Death Metal oriented riffs with easy to follow, probably hard to master drums under them with Heikki Miettinen's crushing vocals over top of everything you're easily and quickly pulled into this bands grasp. The fourth song on the album, "The Colossus Fell", is the most dominant song to prove this bands Doomy Sludge sound, this is a sound I didn't know I wanted Death-Doom(Stoner even maybe) Metal, of course it's not new, but CULT OF ENDTIME have come close to mastering it, whether they intended to or not. The other portion of this song takes on a Blackened Death style, speeding up drastically and making for nice contrast in showing how this band is not just a one trick pony. One thing I didn't even notice until probably my fourth or fifth time through is the fact that this album doesn't feature many guitar solos, something Death Metal is sort of known for. Just as a small observation to show you that they're not needed to make an amazing album.

CULT OF ENDTIME and their debut album fresh out of Finland, "In Charnel Lights," is a nice breather that Death Metal needs, although this album hasn't hit a level where its groundbreaking, CULT OF ENDTIME could start a revolution and take Death Metal in the direction it needs to go. Forget what you know, CULT OF ENDTIME may well be the new face of Death Metal. Svart Records hit gold with this one.<