Menu
195 metal CDs
  • Home
  • About
  • Full list of CDs
  • Genres
  • Scores
195 metal CDs

December’s Cold Winter—Ablaze All Shrines (2008)

Posted on Tuesday 6 May 2014Thursday 4 July 2019
December's Cold Winter—Ablaze All Shrines (2008)
December’s Cold Winter—Ablaze All Shrines (2008)

Details

Recorded, engineered, mixed and produced by Max Gutierrez at Cavan Studios, Heredis, Costa Rica from May to October 2008. Mastered by Esteban Rojas at Cisma Productions, Alajuela, Costa Rica. Released on Envenomed label in 2008.

www.decemberscoldwinter.com

Band

  • Alfredo Guzman—Vocals
  • Isak Arroyo—Guitars
  • Max Gutierrez—Guitars
  • Esteban Gonzalez—Bass guitar
  • Allan Chaves—Drums

Tracks

  1. Envenomed cult
  2. Your sordid pride
  3. Ablaze all shrines
  4. Black garden’s sculptures
  5. Manipulating human emotions
  6. Kings of lie
  7. Consequences

Review

This is the Costa Rican band’s second full-length album as December’s Cold Winter; the following year they changed their name to Advent of Bedlam.

Uh-oh! This album starts with a strange recording of a group of people reciting the Lord’s Prayer, which then disappears into a wall of noise and the kind of mildly-melodic death metal gurgle that was popular back in early nineties. Welcome to track number one, “Envenomed cult”. As a Christian, it’s never really a good sign if an album opens with a recording of Christian worship. You just know what’s coming next. Or at least you would if you could understand the guttural vocals. Thank the Lord for the lyrics in the CD inset booklet; or at least thank someone, I’m not sure the Lord gets much praise on this album. It’s the same old boring taunts, labelling Christians as mindless, deluded liars. Yawn!

I think it’s fair to say that I didn’t really connect with this album from the start. Not because of its anti-Christian position, there are actually quite a few bands whose music I do really like (Ancient VVisdom, Morbid Angel, Dead Congregation). The music just left me as cold as a… you know.

I’ve listened to the album twice through now, and like a few other albums on this project it became background noise. I’ve heard it all before: metronomic drums, melodic riffs, throaty vocals. The seven songs could all quite easily be editing into one Meshuggah-challenging epic song. Epic in the sense of going on for a long time. Disappointing really.

Conclusion

Perhaps I may have warmed to this album had I listened to it more often. But I doubt it. This may be the shortest review I’ve rolled out yet, but it’s by far not the worst score. This was for me generic, off-the-shelf death metal by numbers. But it was still nicer background music than some of the other offerings here. Not exactly a glowing recommendation, but like the album it could have been worse.

Review score: 60%

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Genres

  • About the project (4)
  • Heavy metal (214)
    • Alternative (11)
    • Ambient (3)
    • Avant-garde (8)
    • Black (38)
    • Crossover (2)
    • Death (50)
    • Doom (18)
    • Drone (5)
    • Experimental (14)
    • Folk (7)
    • Gothic (7)
    • Grindcore (15)
    • Groove (9)
    • Industrial (11)
    • Instrumental (5)
    • Metalcore (12)
    • Power metal (5)
    • Progressive (32)
    • Ragga (2)
    • Sludge (15)
    • Speed metal (2)
    • Thrash (26)
  • Punk (15)
  • Rock (40)
    • Blues (2)
    • Depressive (1)
    • Electronic (1)
    • Grunge (1)
    • Hardcore (15)
    • Indie (1)
    • Post-Hardcore (1)
    • Psychedelic Rock (1)
    • Stoner (3)
  • Spoken word (1)

Search

Recent Posts

  • Deified—Anthrobscene EP (2020)
  • Buckshot Facelift—Ulcer Island (2018)
  • BillyBio—Feed the Fire (2018)
  • Krysthla—Worldwide Negative (2019)
  • Flotsam and Jetsam—The End of Chaos (2019)
  • Latitudes—Part Island (2019)
  • Cerberon—Cerberon EP (2018)

Most common tags

60% 65% 70% 75% 80% 85% 90% 95% 98% 100% 2007 2008 black black metal death Death metal doom England experimental Finland grindcore hardcore industrial Italy London melodic death metal metal metalcore music New York Norway NY prog progressive progressive metal punk review rock sludge Sweden thrash thrash metal UK US USA

Music genres

About the project Alternative Ambient Avant-garde Black Blues Crossover Death Depressive Doom Drone Electronic Experimental Folk Gothic Grindcore Groove Grunge Hardcore Heavy metal Indie Industrial Instrumental Metalcore Post-Hardcore Power metal Progressive Psychedelic Rock Punk Ragga Rock Sludge Speed metal Spoken word Stoner Thrash
Copyright © 2019 Gareth J M Saunders