Centinex has been one of the most overseen death metal bands in Sweden. The band was formed almost in the same era as death metal giants like
Entombed,
Unleashed and
Dismember but nobody ever mentions anything about
Centinex. They managed to release several albums but somehow the band never got the right amount of attention to be recognized by the larger masses of metal fans. That's a shame because
Centinex knew how to deliver devastating death metal, and this is obvious in their last release called
World Declension.
World Declension was the last album from
Centinex. In this album you will find death metal that is stuck right in between the brutal type of death metal and the melodic type of death metal. The music is not as brutal and old-school like
Dismember but it isn't exactly melodic as the type death metal that
Dark Tranquillity are known for. The music is utterly forceful, combining bludgeoning death metal with small amounts of melodic elements to create a nice but lethal load of ripping death metal. But the cool thing is that the music has a small thrashy sound as well. One might think that death metal is all about heavy power-chords or dark-tinged tremolo picking patterns but no. The grinding, gritty and down-tuned guitars actually have a nice thrash-vibe in them as well, and this aspect makes the music very sharp and aggressive, not just brutal and extreme. But there is more than just the music, the vocal performance is a marvel worth mentioning. Loud monster growling are combined with intense screaming and this gives the music a great vocal diversity. The main vocal style is the powerful and highly aggressive growls and the screams works great as backup during the verses and choruses.
This album does not suffer from any particular flaws. The music is straight-forward face-melting death metal that people never cared to check out. But nowadays the music industry is soiled with hundreds and even thousands of metal bands that sounds just like this album so people never take their time to check out the work of
Centinex. Melodic or non-melodic bands that got famous very quickly made it quite impossible for other ''underground'' bands to reach out to a wider audience. But lets focus on
World Declension one last time. The album doesn't have any greater flaws, the only thing that matters is the listeners own opinion. The album has the proper energy, powerful brutality and interesting musical variety that a death metal album should have. Fans of the Swedish legions of old-school and modern death metal should definitely give this a listen.
Recommended Tracks
-- Victorious Dawn Rising
-- Flesh Is Fragile
-- Purgatorial Overdrive
-- Deconstruction Macabre
