Review by Sonny for Bog Body - Cryonic Crevasse Cult (2022)

As anyone who is remotely familiar with my ramblings will tell you, I am always partial to some filthy, cavernous, Autopsy-style death doom, so I had some decent expectations for this, Bog Body's debut album. Alas these expectations were just castles in the sky as the reality is not as great as the premise, which is putrid death doom that rejects six-stringers and let's the four-stringed beast lead the way, plumbing new depths of cavernousness. The truth is that the lack of lead guitar means zero riffs, thus robbing the tracks of the requisite heft that doom metal demands and replacing it with a muted rumbling that doesn't truly pack much of a punch at all. Add to that the muted drum sound and the distant-sounding vocals and you have a death doom release that lacks any sort of presence and just flutters about at the periphery of your attention, coming off like a glorified basement demo. The two guys from Bog Body can count themselves rather fortunate to have scored interest from a major metal label such as Profound Lore, especially with the huge number of unsigned acts in the current crowded metal scene.

Cryonic Crevasse Cult is not a complete loss as a couple of tracks generate some interest, Ice Stained Kurgan and the title track for example, but generally, even for me, it was a bit of a slog and seemed much longer than it's actual 33 minutes run time. The sad thing is that with a decent guitarist, comfortable in the Asphyx/Autopsy style they would have a decent LP on their hands.