Kingdom — Abusive Worship In The Chamber Of Shame
Kingdom are a Polish Death metal four-piece who play brutal to moodily dammed DM fare. The band started in Płock, Masovia in the year 2003- with to date them releasing six albums. Abusive Worship In The Chamber Of Shame is the band's most recent release- it’s a ten-track album, which appears on Poland’s Old Temple Records.
The release comes as either a jewel case presented CD, an Ltd orange-tinged jewel case with a patch, or a cassette version- I’m reviewing the first of these. The CD comes presented with a twelve-page inlay booklet- this features on its front cover a shrouded figure with its hands held out in a christ-like pose over a mist hazed piles of skulls. Inside the booklet, we get full lyrics with upside-down crucified borders, and a picture of the band's four members with hands often raised up.
The album takes in nine original tracks, and one cover of an Azarath track. Each of the tracks has fairly swift runtimes between two and four minutes. The album opens with “Obelżywy Kult” with its fading-in sinster drone/ slightly industrial clunking effects breaking out into glamouring Death metal. The track shifts from a mix of battering drums, speeding prime evil riff, and semi-chanted barks, through to more mid-paced solo-laced breakdowns. With the whole track rather giving me a more simplified and rapidly bludgeoning Nile-type vibe.
As we move through the album we go from “Seraphins Decay” which alternates between building doomed chug & deep guttural barks, and rapidly battering drum attacks meet sinister riff rage. There’s “Blood Revelation” which opens with screams & roasting sound effects, before slamming into a bark-lined DM pummelling. There’s the flaying riff saw, meets manically battering drums, and stretched barks of “Void Of Light”. And the galloping chug meets slicing ‘n’ dart percussion runs of “Chamber Of Shame” which features bayed growls, sourly simmering guitar solo, and sudden speedy battering’s.
Abusive Worship In The Chamber Of Shame may not be the most distinctive or mould-breaking Death Metal record you’ll have heard- but the album moves by enjoyable enough, with the four-piece having both a good grasp of both brain battering sinister brutality, and doomed to moody flare.