Crypt Sermon, Out of the Garden: Opening the Temple Doors
Posted in Reviews on February 27th, 2015 by JJ Koczan
Philly traditional doom five-piece Crypt Sermon aren’t yet halfway into album opener “Temple Doors” before vocalist Brooks Wilson tosses in his first Dio reference, copping a cry of “Fool! Fool!” from Black Sabbath‘s “Heaven and Hell.”There are few metal singers harder to take on than Ronnie James Dio, and to his credit, Wilson pays homage without trying to directly imitate on Crypt Sermon‘s full-length debut, Out of the Garden, winding up no more indebted to Dio than to Robert Lowe of Solitude Aeturnus, Messiah Marcolin of Candlemass, or Judas Priest‘s Rob Halford. These are lofty names, particularly in doom and classic metal, but the comparisons hold up throughout Out of the Garden, which is released by Dark Descent Records and follows behind Crypt Sermon‘s Demo MMXIII (review here). That first release also opened with “Temple Doors,” and the song’s hook is all the more resonant here for it, guitarists Steve Jansson and James Lipczynski, bassist Will Mellor and drummer Enrique Sagarnaga making it a launch point for the album’s seven tracks/44 minutes of oldschool revelation. In riffs and atmosphere, Out of the Garden owes more to Leif Edling or to the dual-guitar doom blueprint of Trouble than Tony Iommi — though of course you couldn’t have ones without the other — and the band’s unabashed appreciation for the doom metal of old feels genuine. Not concerned directly with the raw, slow-punk riffing of Saint Vitus or the heavy rock grooves of Pentagram, Crypt Sermon take a stricter view of doom, and the result here is grand without being overblown, with an ’80s-style echoing snare that only further dogwhistles their sphere of influence. They might be out of the garden, but they’re definitely still under the oak.
Chanting begins “Temple Doors,” which is fitting enough given the song’s religious theme, but the subsequent “Heavy Riders” has a more straightforward take, its chugging verses giving way to an organ-laced bridge and slowdown-into-pickup that seems like it’s just waiting to launch into the chorus of “At the Gallows End,” but Crypt Sermon handle the back and forth tempo changes smoothly and the 5:07 “Byzantium” kicks in with a rolling groove and minor-key lead that subsides to set up a linear build marked out by a repetition of the title as a chorus. It’s a deceptively effective hook, Sagarnaga punctuating the march while the guitars lumber forward, a shredding solo taking hold after the halfway point that Wilson gives appropriate room. By then, “Byzantium” has moved into a quicker pace, so the slowdown and refrain of the opening progression works well as the apex of the build, even if it feels a bit faster than the first time around. I don’t know where the vinyl split is, but my sense is “Will of the Ancient Call” — also the centerpiece of the CD/digital versions — is the closer of side A, which leaves “Into the Holy of Holies,” “The Master’s Bouquet” and “Out of the Garden” for side B. The timing works that way, anyhow, and “Will of the Ancient Call” ties well thematically with “Byzantium”‘s fascination with things lost to time and mystical knowledge and so on, though it’s a catchier track and boasts a particularly fascinating drum progression that sounds almost like there are two tracks running simultaneously. Extra snare hits can catch the listener off-guard who might be expecting something along the lines of “Heavy Riders,” but whether it’s one layer or more, it works, and the guitars and bass hold themselves together well around, Wilson of course adding soaring vocals to an already driving instrumental peak.
At 8:15, “Into the Holy of Holies” is the longest cut on Out of the Garden, and its feel is accordingly grandiose, beginning with atmospheric keys and building into acoustic guitar before the intro riff hits, thickened by the bass and given bite with quick runs of snare before the first verse starts around 2:45. To call it the “heaviest” inclusion on the album would seem to take away from what Crypt Sermon do on “Byzantium” or the following “The Master’s Bouquet,” but it’s a highlight all the same, and all the more for the melody of its chorus, which later on boasts some choice layering in the vocals over a guitar lead before they cut back to the initial push for a measure or so to end out. “The Master’s Bouquet” fades in with echoing spoken word and a clean-sung performance worthy of Johan Längquist. The song itself, the shortest on the record at 4:53, is easily overshadowed by “Into the Holy of Holies” before it and “Out of the Garden” after, but Wilson makes it a standout all the same, and since bookending is something Crypt Sermon have done so well across their debut, it’s fitting that the closing title-track should have a Dio reference of its own, this time in Wilson‘s reworking lyrics for an ending that would otherwise be filler were it not so purposeful in its construction. Was certainly filler when Dio did it. Still, the closer offers more than just its last 20 seconds in terms of underscoring just how right Crypt Sermon have gotten traditional doom their first time out, and while they’ve traded in Maryland-style riffing for more epic metal fare, it works for them, tonally, vocally and rhythmically. There’s an underlying current of extremity in some of their guitar solos and in the drums, and I’d be interested to hear how that develops over subsequent releases, but since so much of the aesthetic purpose of trad doom is in paying homage to what’s come before, there isn’t much about Out of the Garden that really needs to be messed with. Rather, the album fulfills the promise the demo held, and sets up Crypt Sermon for more fist-pumping, headbang-worthy doom to come.
