Rotting and losing yourself in filth, was that the message that being conveyed over here? Or once again we are bound to legends written by extremely talented folks many years ago? I believe that these are interesting questions when it comes to old school Death Metal, predominantly the old 90s Swedish version, and I don't mean the melodic heritage. I am talking about fuming and putrid like the old GRAVE, CARNAGE along with British outburst like early PARADISE LOST, BOLT THROWER or BENEDICTION and even some of the American muck of MORBID ANGEL. In an age where preserving the old can be a really hard task to handle, there has to be an artist, or to be exact, a band that should inflame the torch once again and carry it to the land where the malevolent legends can come alive in peace. There has been a rise in the number of old school Death Metal bands but only a few really know how to answer the call with right amount of talent and might.

PUTERAEON from Sweden have been watched for quite some time and over the last four years, since their bloody excavation, they have been showing it off. "Cult Cthulhu", once again reminding that H.P. Lovecraft's tales of forlorn will never cease to be, released via Cyclone Empire, comes as number two to for the foursome. I Thought I wasn't sure at first, but I think that I can somewhat see eye to eye with those that claim that with PUTERAEON's tribute to the older malignant gods of Death Metal, with the torch burning in their hands, they have something to look up to. However, this album can't be their finest. PUTERAEON's music created havoc when it came to pure morbid, riff based Death Metal that even though this kind of playing style has been drenched, torn apart and overly used since the 80s, it was still kind of nice, yet not too constructive I am afraid in this case. I think that in order to be a little contradictory to the same old stuff, PUTERAEON added a few Doom Metal elements like slow tempo sections and a few melodic features that reminded me of old Doom / Death Metal inputs like "Lost Paradise" era of PARADISE LOST and a few bloodthirsty moments out of BENEDICTION.

"The Azathoth Cycle" bursts into thousand flames with a doomy intro that converges into a straightforward fist of death right to face. The chorus is pretty simple and I am sure that people would enjoy it in the mosh pit. "Shoggoth", with a name that was breastfed by dark legends, is one of the more complex tracks on the album, striking with defying riffing with a few extra semi harmonic sections and even impressive soloing. "Conlaceratus" and "A Bolt From The Grace" are pure Death Metal classic features, straight to the face without taking pity of the weak. It is a total annihilation with a type of simplicity that is cool to listen and to get pleasure from. "Liberation" sinks back into a sort of a weird type extreme Doom Metal, for me it looked like a good way to end the album.

PUTERAEON strike me as a promising band of Metalheads that indeed know the history of the extreme genre they are playing. However, I would have added more challenging and harmonically tarnished stuff just like on "Shoggoth" & "Liberation". With "Cult Cthulhu" old school Death Metal was reborn again, yet I would like to see more while watching PUTERAEON exploiting their full potential. The real plague starts here.