Crest of Darkness – Evil Messiah (2015)

Hailing from Norway, Crest of Darkness delivers us with their latest offering: “Evil Messiah” a 20-minute EP filled with the band’s signature old-school(ish) Black/Death Metal. Featuring 3 normal songs and a cover of Alice Cooper’s “Sick Things”, this release is quite entertaining and a good follow up to their 2013 release “In the Presence of Death”.

Opening with the super catchy “Evil Messiah”, the band grabs your attention with a certain retro sound that is not very common these days. The main driver of this track is the crunchy guitar riffs that make it well suited for headbanging to it. Things get Thrashier with the intense “Armageddon”, a song that reminds us to old-school Thrash from the Bay area but with harsher vocals.

As we move forward to “Abandoned By God”, the mood changes once more to a more sinister and heavier sound in this track. We have never been big fans of Ingar Amlien’s vocals, and we are quickly reminded in this release, however, they are well suited for the style of music and this song is greatly benefitted from them. Being Alice Cooper fans, we are pleasantly surprised that the band’s cover of “Sick Things” is quite decent as they made it their own rather than just play the song exactly the same way.

Overall, “Evil Messiah” is a nice little release that will keep fans of the band entertained until they release a new album. We particularly enjoyed that certain old-school vibe that the band has managed to keep in their musical style. If you are a fan of Crest of Darkness, this is a must have release, especially if you want to collect the 12” vinyl version they are releasing at the end of March.

Label: My Kingdom Music

Release: February 23rd, 2015

Genre: Black/Death Metal

Country: Norway