Coffin Lust, Manifestation of Inner Darkness

I’m an old guy. I grew up on bands comprising the first wave of Swedish death metal. I count Dismember, Entombed, Grave and Unleashed as musical parents, if you will. What I’m getting at here is that I have a soft spot for similar sounding death metal. And that’s exactly what’s in store once you get rolling on Coffin Lust’s Manifestation of Inner Darkness — plus a smattering of other influences.

To be honest, there’s really nothing within these eight songs we all haven’t really heard before, but that doesn’t mean this is a throw away album. Coffin Lust have shown they are quite capable of playing Swedish death metal and of crafting memorable songs based, albeit heavily influenced by bands of old. Toss in a little Autopsy here and there along with a blackened tinge shows the band doing their best to separate themselves from the patches on their jean jackets.

“Beyond Redemption” is a decent track with a weaving, slithering melody amongst the Entombed riffage. “Mass Extinction” gets turned up to eleven with a more aggressive rhythm than the opening two songs. “Chaos Absolute” is far from absolutely chaos as it chugs along with Dismember and Entombed echoed in the guitars and rhythm. Unleashed shows up in the early riffs on “Swarming Black Inferno” while  “Prophecy of Malevolence” spews out some Autopsy in it’s pounding drive.

There’s nothing wrong with sharing your love for the founding fathers of old school death metal. That’s what Coffin Lust have with Manifestation of Inner Darkness, an homage to those bands. As a fan of this branch of death metal, I’m fine with that as long as the band plays it capably — and they do throughout the eight songs in store.