Surging with wrath and touting a shredded black banner blazoned with an eight-pronged sigil Richmond, Virginia-based death/war metal band Left Cross burst beyond the black gate changed, howling for a final war in an unheard-of tongue and spewing molten iron across all they encounter. Years spent in trenches soaked and crusted with vile blood have molded them into a formidable furnace-eyed maniac deathcult in the space of just a few years as we find the quartet’s second full-length album resorting to newly amplified violent extremes for the sake of unholy victory. Cranked to a new barbaric high ‘Upon Desecrated Altars‘ is dishonorable act of war, a spiked bludgeon and a stomp meant to bulldoze the world over with its terror-stricken corridor of riff and ruin.

Left Cross formed between members of Embra, Unsacred and Antichrist Siege Machine circa 2015 and ripped right into one of the better examples of death metal and crust punk in an ugliest most primordial harmony with their first demo (‘Infernal Assault‘, 2015), a tape which you’ve likely already heard if you’d followed my An Exhaustive Study column for Death Metal/Crust Punk back in 2021. Their approach would develop into a sort of ‘In Battle there is No Law‘-sized flattener as their gig would draw comparisons to Bolt Thrower over the course of their first few EP releases with ‘Servants of Death‘ (2016) making it clear this was going to be more of a mid-paced, bounding death metal group. Grinding, militant, but loose in its swerving crust-fed swing the original goalpost these folks set for themselves appeared to have been achieved on their underrated debut LP (‘Chaos Ascension‘, 2017). Divebombed leads, splattered 80’s grinding blasts, and plenty of meaty early 90’s death metal jogs made for a noisome and ear-catching debut which is virtually unrelated to the sound they’d go on to develop beyond that point.

Captivity amidst pandemia, callous corporate constriction abounding, tensions erupting into genocidal warfare and seeming endless mainland violence must’ve added up and in a matter of a few years a far darker entity arose on their next tape (‘Prophecy of Conquest‘, 2020) but they’d not left behind the admixture of metalpunk patternation within that harder-edged and mid-paced death metal sound entirely. “Consecrated in Victory” was basically where this clearest seedling for the style of ‘Upon Desecrated Altars‘ seemed to have been revealed and this would be compounded on Left Cross‘ next tape (‘Promo 2022‘, 2022) a couple of years later, now steeped in black/death or “war metal” atmosphere and given some hairier atmospheric depth. We find two of those songs retained and all of those new-found murderous tendencies compounded on this second LP.

From the hymnal waft of intro “Debellation” to the blunt-faced plow into “The Blood of Mars” Left Cross are blank faced and rolling hard across the bloody mush below, delivering a flattening tank-like wallop for the first minute of the opener before the elastic sling-shot of their bonking ultra-downtuned death metallic four-count riffs begin to preface the first verse. They’ve gone from writing two and a half minute death-crust songs to three and a half minute death metal songs with an iron-handed slap to their rhythms and the shift feels entirely natural as it first rolls out. Not spiritually so distant from Bolt Thrower‘s grindcore-era steamroller of a debut this approach is yet better described as a death metal focused Antichrist Siege Machine if we examine the simple signature of that band and how that’d marginally relate to the death metal leaning recordings from Profane Order and Archgoat. At ~35 minutes in length and chopped into ten pieces this one blazes by fast though there is some general nuance, a few standout waves to observe within the horrified droning of it all.

DEEPER LISTENING [Click Here]:

Antichrist Siege Machine: A war metal band from Richmond, VA that shares a drummer with Left Cross and has a similarly propulsive death metal feeling to their attack. All their stuff smokes.

Profane Order: Quebec based black/death metal band who balance more blackened affect into their death metal riffcraft than Left Cross, but also uses simple and aggressive riffs and vocals. Check out ‘One Nightmare Unto Another‘ (2023)!

Archgoat: A long-running black/death metal band from Finland that is one of the pioneers of the sub-genre and has influenced many other bands, (probably) including Left Cross. They have a more black metal-oriented sound than Left Cross, but also use distorted bass and death metal riffcraft in a similarly effective way. They have released four albums, Whore of Bethlehem (2006), The Light-Devouring Darkness (2009), The Apocalyptic Triumphator (2015), and The Luciferian Crown (2018) everything they’ve done is essential.

An Exhaustive Study: Death Metal/Crust Punk [1988-Present] Part I – The Stench of Infectious Fear : Get hip to middle finger waggling stenchcore as it’d fumed its existential dread into the death metal uprising through extreme thrash in the late 80’s!

The first half of ‘Upon Desecrated Altars‘ caps off with the title track where we hear the roar of the crowd begin to overtake the distorted clubbed-at guitar tones Left Cross‘ve used to hurl through its first four pieces. From my point of vantage the satisfaction of the ‘discovery phase’ of listening already began to seep out of its wounds beyond the kicking and wailing-high rub of “Deity of Molten Iron” as it became evident there’ll be very little variation to come beyond this opening burst of ideas, all of which flow together without interruption; While I appreciate the chaotic and diabolical grinding of Side A the next batch of pieces aren’t out to impress so much as create a brutal direction for the listening experience to drain into beyond the mid-point. One of the reprised pieces from their 2022 demo “Inexorable March” gets a more polished take and stands out up front for my taste but it would be the droning crush of “Pyramid of Conquered Skulls” that’d end up becoming my favorite piece on the record within its uninterrupted push from start to finish. Front to back this record just crushes through and unceremoniously cuts out once “Celestial Wound” is done and I cannot fault a band that keeps it this simple and effective in all of their choices without becoming bland, especially one which thrives in a bestial extreme metal style.

With crisped-over production values (via Arthur Rizk and Dan Lowndes) and enough of a riff-focused death metal attack ‘Upon Desecrated Altars‘ is ear-catching, bold and fundamentally readable in its rhythmic development to the point that the modern ‘old school’ appreciator of death metal should enjoy the listening experience when taken at face value. The war metal inspiration here vitally provides texture and a feral touch which will admittedly likely not sate the needs of the progressivist seeking the next evolution of extreme metal but rather those seeking a devolved, primal tract of aggression which dulls the senses and simply kills whatever it encounters. The target for a record presented so cleanly but sporting such a rapacious tooth is likely the war metal curious, folks who enjoy the spirited blasphemies of bestial black/death metal permutations but prefer the moldering spectrum of death metal attached lend some direction. As a fan of all of these things I’m left in a floating void between realms where I know all of the extremes surrounding this mid-point on the spectrum and cannot stop daydreaming what this record might’ve been with one additional parameter attached (more complex rhythmic devices, obscurant atmosphere, more divebombing and whammy-bar whipping) though I cannot evaluate Left Cross‘ work based on what isn’t there.

After countless rides through the gore-wetted blades of the machine, huffing wildly of the bloody fog spraying from its turbine engine of gore ‘Upon Desecrated Altars‘ wasn’t such a disturbing slam of the sub-genre reset button for Left Cross so much as it provided a sensical evolution beyond their death-crusted beginnings. The more I whipped neck through the vortex the more I appreciated this record as a primal act of aggression and a work which first and foremost achieves an interesting sub-genre fusion, crafting an experience which is texturally grating, a bruising and filthed-up sort of mayhem that feels eventful even with some great familiarity with its inner machinery. A moderately high recommendation.

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