Band: Circle Of Dead Children
Title: Psalm Of The Grand Destroyer
Label: Candlelight Records
Distribution: Plastic Head Distribution
Release date: June 7th 2010
Review: CD

Circle Of Dead Children are a Pittsburgh-based Doom / Grind formation with Joe Horvath in its ranks. Five years after the successful Earache-release Zero Comfort Margin, which was one of the best Grind-releases that very same year, the band entered the studio again with producer Scott Hull, known from his productional and mastering assistance to many highly appreciated Grindcore- and Death Metal-bands (Phobia, Suffocation, Visceral Bleeding, Exhumed, Nile and many others), and also involved with several influential sonic acts - think Agoraphobic Nosebleed, Anal Cunt, Pig Destroyer, Enemy Soil etc.
The fifteen tracks on this album, which lasts for nearly half an hour, continue the well-known sound Circle Of Dead Children are known for, combining, at the one hand, blasting and filthy Grind-explosions with artillery-drums and a heavy-as-f*ck rhythm section, and slow, devastatingly sickening parts at the other (the few longer anthems). The technical riffs lack of progressive bullshit, and with sardonic pleasure the whole maintains a pseudo-gore nineties approach with a typical North-Eastern touch of crusty inhumanity. The vocals are splendid too, because of a certain ‘variety’ - and I’m not just talking about the [predictable] equilibrium between deadly grunts and guttural screams.
Two remarks: the complete and -sometimes disappointing- lack of originality, and the lack of variation.
Highlight: Germinate The Reaper Seed!

79/100

Ivan Tibos.