GrotesqueThis is a one man (Batu Çetin) project from Turkey, its old sounding death metal with a heavy bass presence which I find similar to the early DM scene, from all quarters of the world. For that I am thinking of a hybrid between Benediction and the US monsters Obituary and Incantation (from which their track ‘Profanation’ is covered at the tail end of this release) and even some Celtic Frost by nature of the guitar tone and tempo. The Florida legions are mentioned as this album has a similar tempo and feel to most of their material. Slow to mid paced, without going too slow to be into the doom death realm, which is fine by me.

Artwork and presentation seems to depict some altered religious and ghoulish medieval dark times with witch burning connotations, with some barbaric decimation of the female form thrown in, of course the statement ‘I Will Not Repent Your God’ confirms this! The songs themselves are not fulfilled as they could be, mainly down to the murky and quite dense production, but limitations like this always figure with recent one man projects when you don’t record everything with live instruments. Although, I have to hand it to Batu, he has recorded, mixed, written and mastered everything himself, but sometimes it pays to add someone else or others into the mix to stave off single minded visions. With this I make reference to the songs, as they don’t really figure that differently from one to the next.

However, the presentation and feel of this CD has a marked level of quality, but perhaps more could be done in the song writing process for future efforts, it would certainly be nice to hear other musicians or sounds appear from time to time to add a touch of rotten spice to the mix. But, this is not a bad album, there’s a fair bit to offer, but it could go a touch further.

(7/10 Paul Maddison)

https://www.facebook.com/grotesqueceremonium

https://grotesqueceremonium.bandcamp.com