Band: HEAVYDEATH / EXCRUCIATION
Country: Sweden / Switzerland
Title: Heavydeath - Excruciation
Label: Auric Records
Year: 2018
Style: Doom Death

Review:
Swiss Doom Death veterans Ecruciation are extremely active since 2012 releasing at least one new material per year hence keeping things hot and tasty for their fans and also exposing their music to new ears especially through these splits. This time they've chosen Swedish Heavydeath Made by members of Runemagick and Katatonia) as companions for a 7"EP release. Not sure if this is still a supported format between vinyl fanatics, but a new track from both bands should be enough as incentive to at least give it a try. 
Heavydeath open this split with Descending, a 6 minutes track that reminded me of the '90's fine line between Doom Death and Doom, or better said when (mostly English) Doom Death bands started to add more and more melody and to used the Death Metal side of it just as a foundation for obscure, dense atmosphere rather than brutality. I'm impressed by how an important role the upfront bass lines are playing in this band, very cool feature.
Excruciation's track, Haunted, is an almost 5 minutes catchy Doom Death anthem highlighted by that half clean half growling vocal type that always reminds me of Benediction / Bolt Thrower's Dave Ingram, extremely organic, comprehensive and at the same time menacing, one of my fave vocals actually. The instrumental part is grave, upfront, extremely oppressive but at the same time delivered with a very clean production, cleaner than one could expect from such a band. I think this band should get more attention, not (only) because they've been around for two decades (of activity combined), but also because their type of Doom is not what we usually hear within the nowadays Doom Metal revival, a band that's doing their own thing.
Reviewed by Adrian
Rating: 8/10   8.5/10

Contact:
facebook.com/heavydeathofficial
excruciation.net
auricrecords.bandcamp.com