Despite forming in 2013, this NYC-by-way-of-global members quartet didn’t fire off their debut, Defiled In Oblivion, until 2022. Rather than continue to roll with a slow build, they’ve struck while the iron is hot and crafted sophomore album Coronation Of The Grotesque with all the blood, guts, gore and bone weapons you would anticipate from a brutal death metal album. Every aspect of their Cannibal Corpse-indebted brand of violence remains intact, with several elements taking a step up.
Look no further than “Deviant Miscreant” to think to yourself, “Is this an Evisceration Plague outtake?” While the influence is clear, a clone Castrator is not. That same track knows when to slow into a pit-crusher but also briefly utilizes an ominous, almost gothic guitar line during one short stretch. There’s quite a bit of character on display here. “I Am Eunuch” has a nice little chase riff that sounds like something a serial killer would hear in their head as they hunt their victim through the woods, but it also opens with a clarion-call guitar line and has a gnarly, slowed-down suffo chop passage as well. “Covenant of Deceit” puts some real giddy-up into the formula that you can practically hear the stampeding feet of a circle pit during, yet the band knows just when to pull back the tempo in a way that will shift that crowd noise to the sounds of fists hitting floors. “Mortem Opeterie” blends bits of Hate Eternal chaos with straight-up rocking riffs that will make you picture a leather-clad fist pumping in the air.
While the playfulness with space and tempo helps, Castrator separates a bit from their brutal DM peers with the group’s lyrical themes. Sure, this is still gore and upsetting imagery, but the team focuses on real-life inspirations such as the death of Mahsa Amini, who was killed in Iran by police for not wearing a hijab, the deranged practicing of chopping off boy’s nuts so they could retain their angelic singing voices (eunuchs), and the story as old as time of church leaders unsurprisingly turning out to be kid diddlers with a focus on Naasón Joaquín García. Those are just some of the topics called out in the press materials, so I’m sure a deep dive into the lyric booklet once available will yield many other tales worth knowing, and becoming pissed off, about.
Castrator’s true ace-in-the-hole on this album, however, is new lead guitarist Sara Loerlein. Rather than simply blasting chaotic noise that sounds like a puppy chewing on a fret board that is quite common in this space, her background sees her utilizing a much greater variety of tactics and giving the leads some character. “Remnants Of Chaos” has an aptly wild section that builds into a killer shredding and diving lead. While shredding isn’t surprising, there are tracks like “Psalm of the Beguiled” that have a rather gorgeous lead that lasts longer than most and sounds more like the melodic-tinged beauty you would expect from a band like The Black Dahlia Murder. The album’s strongest song, “Blood Binds Curse,” brings all of her skill sets together with a shrapnel blast of climbing notes to open the track, a beehive swarm of a riff immediately following, and then later using an absolute horse-race of a searing lead.
After about 30 minutes of beating you over the head with hefty tunes and even heftier lyrics, Castrator does remind the listener that death metal is fun by playing a very enjoyable cover of Exodus’ “Metal Command.” Though yet again, Loerlein steals the spotlight by absolutely crushing the guitar solo. Avoiding any sense of a sophomore slump, Castrator continues to cement its spot in the brutal death metal world, and is well worth keeping an eye out for when they swing through your town for a show.
