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Cult Of Fire - Moksha review




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Reviewer:
7.0

47 users:
7.64
Band: Cult Of Fire
Album: Moksha
Release date: February 2020


01. Zrození Výjimečného
02. Město Mrtvých
03. (ne)Čistý
04. Har Har Mahadev
05. Mok?a

Announcing a double album and then releasing it as two separate albums, each around 35 minutes in run time, certainly isn't the most ordinary way to break silence after nearly 7 years without any full length releases. But that clearly hasn't stopped Cult Of Fire from doing just that.

Most people probably know Cult Of Fire from their 2013 album with the Hindi title: an immersive, and widely acclaimed dive into a hypnotizing brand of black metal smothered in Vedic influences and Hindu mythology. Since then the Czech trio have more or less been following in a similar vein with subsequent releases, so much so that it can at times become difficult to discern the exact differences in songwriting and overall structure between one and the next. With Moksha Cult Of Fire don't appear to deviate from this established formula too noticeably, but their focus appears to be on a rather crunchier, riff centric approach. Barring the band's debut, this is quite possibly the heaviest they've sounded. This is speaking relatively, of course, as this album isn't "heavy" in a brutal death metal or sludge sense? but, nonetheless, repeated listens do seem to reveal an added emphasis on catchiness and the overall "weight" of the riffage, on tracks such as "Město Mrtvých" or "Har Har Mahadev" especially.

The thing is, this new emphasis seems to have come almost at the expense of the band's distinct, hypnotizing allure of earlier. Perhaps this is a somewhat minor complaint, as there are still elements on Moksha that help raise it ever so slightly on the "transcendent" scale? chants here, a melodic interlude there, perhaps a bit of tribal percussion in the background elsewhere. But these ingredients of Cult Of Fire's songwriting seem to be briefer and all around less sustained on this release, lessening their overall impact and even at times feeling somewhat forced. You can definitely feel this shift in the production as well, which, counter to the brighter, airy, and atmospheric feel of previous Cult Of Fire albums, comes off a lot denser and bass-heavy.

While definitely a tad catchier and head bobbing than some of the material preceding it, Moksha really seems to have turned down the knob on Cult Of Fire's epic factor, not necessarily removing that aspect of their sound entirely, but at the very least downgrading it considerably. While far from a bad release, it does come off as a slightly forgettable one, or rather one that doesn't hold up as well next to others in the Cult Of Fire discog such as our beloved, Hindi-titled one or the Life, Sex, And Death EP.



And that brings us to Nirvana?


Rating breakdown
Performance: 8
Songwriting: 7
Originality: 7
Production: 7





Written on 20.04.2020 by Metal Storm’s own Babalao. Comforting the disturbed and disturbing the comfortable since 2013.


Comments

Comments: 4   Visited by: 87 users
21.04.2020 - 01:26
Rating: 9
RaduP
CertifiedHipster
Honestly I can't look at the cover art and not think that this is a My Sleeping Karma album instead.
----
Do you think if the heart keeps on shrinking
One day there will be no heart at all?
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21.04.2020 - 01:28
Auntie Sahar
Drone Empress
Written by RaduP on 21.04.2020 at 01:26

Honestly I can't look at the cover art and not think that this is a My Sleeping Karma album instead.

It kind of is in their style, isn't it? Definitely the most colorful Cult Of Fire cover yet
----
I am the Magician and the Exorcist. I am the axle of the wheel, and the cube in the circle. “Come unto me” is a foolish word: for it is I that go.

~ II. VII
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21.04.2020 - 11:29
nikarg

"(ne)Čistý" is my favourite track from both albums.
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21.04.2020 - 17:07
Auntie Sahar
Drone Empress
Written by nikarg on 21.04.2020 at 11:29

"(ne)Čistý" is my favourite track from both albums.

I'll have to come back to that, don't remember it sticking out too much to me. I like the opener and Har Har Mahadev most, I think
----
I am the Magician and the Exorcist. I am the axle of the wheel, and the cube in the circle. “Come unto me” is a foolish word: for it is I that go.

~ II. VII
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