CRUCIBLE OF HATE

CRUCIBLE OF HATE     “The Unknown Path”

By Dr. Abner Mality

Ohio’s CRUCIBLE OF HATE is the kind of band made for beer drinking and fist fighting on a Saturday night. There’s no cosmic revelation or hermetic wisdom to be found in their music...just bare knuckles to the face. And there is certainly a place for it in metal today.

This hits a spot between pounding catchy death metal like MASSACRE and FROZEN SOUL and the groove laden sounds of PANTERA and LAMB OF GOD. I can’t say every single track here works perfectly but when C.O.H. finds their groove, they are pretty damn good. They are smart enough to start the album with “March of Truth”, which has a bouncing, surging riff so elemental it will buckle your knees. This is the kind of groove-death I can live with.

From there, it’s aggressive but very easy to get into. A couple of tracks in the middle of the album like “Exploit the Thorn of Deceit” and “Decimation Of The Flesh” are a bit meh and veer too much to LAMB OF GOD worship which so many bands are doing. A better bet is the quirky title track, which has a different, nervous kind of approach. And they end the album just the way they started it, with another top notch cut. “Legacy” is a long one that leans more towards straight thrash and has keeps your interest for the entire length.

I don’t wanna say this is gonna wind up on my year end list, but for angry meat-and-potatoes style metal, this is pretty strong for a debut and I bet they kill live.

CRUCIBLE OF HATE