Cast down poisoned chasm, wriggling through circuitous caverne-set entombment, and constricted into wormlike form in order to reach their funereal nadir Tarragona, Catalonia-based death metal quartet CEREBRAL CURSE carve extensive downward-set cryptae throughout this doomed and galloping debut full-length album. Crafted in the spirit of ancient formae in revision ‘Abominant Incarnations of Sepulchral Depths‘ ungently veers between its fundamental modes of expression, conjuring organic movement which reflects interest in death/doom, funeral doom and ‘new old school’ temperament. The result is less a stewing of familiar ideas and rather a thread cast downward, an abyss-seeking tunneler which becomes difficult to predict as it crawls, blasts and jogs toward abysm.

Cerebral Curse formed as a duo circa 2024 between vocalist/guitarist Ernesto Plazas and drummer Pol Pujals after their blackened death metal crew Siegehammer took a pause, fedding into shared interest in ‘new old school’ groups like Undergang and Fetid ’til the idea morphed into something equally informed by the meandering doom of Spectral Voice and Mortiferum. You could hear that general idea coming into cohesion on the band’s first demo (‘Promo ’25‘, 2025), fostering a style which’d sat well next to compatriots like Sanctuarium in spirit. The general approach to riffcraft within those three songs, and some of the vocal tics found therein, directly apply to the style of the trio’s work on this debut LP but their songcraft now extends into a freer-moving format which flows between bounding neo-death bop, staggered bursts of wrath, and funereal death/doom metal plow all while pooling into ~10-15 minute expanse per song.

Expanded into a quartet for these sessions Cerebral Curse as a crew appear anchored by their interest in extreme doom via several of the related projects/bands that’ve cropped up in the interim (re: Septic Bowel, Rotten Cavern) or were joined recently (God’s Funeral) yet what differentiates them should be evident within minutes spent with this album. What makes an album like ‘Abominant Incarnations of Sepulchral Depths‘ stand out in-scene and more broadly might take some patience beyond immediate impressions, though, as the length of and irregular pathway taken through each piece requires observance. Without repetitious or obviate structure being delineated the total effect of the full listen is something like a slow but terrifying beast in cavernous pursuit, an injured but not deterred advance through a cacophony of fat-toned grooves and creeped death metal shambling.

The rotted-through but determined personae enacted herein could superficially recall the modus of something like Disembowelment in broader spirit but that won’t make much sense outright, instead I’d suggest in terms of peers and/or labelmates their style sinks closer to the clobber of Bocc and manifests as less atmospheric or ‘old school’ tapped as Hrob (alternately Anthrodynia) overall; Opener and title track “Abominant Incarnations of Sepulchral Depths” finds its gurry quickly, sluicing between Cerebral Curse‘s nodes of action with ease in the span of its first ~three minutes with serpentinous movement. That cycle through chugging framing, slapping expansion, and doomed release eventually finds its bopping pace (around the ~4:58 minute mark) as their composition slowly foreshadows swinging movement in approach. Though these are the major nodes of action deployed throughout ‘Abominant Incarnations of Sepulchral Depths‘ outlined the band’ve done well to retain a sense of organic ordering, an unpredictive stepping between tempo and melee which resembles the captivated misery of classic death/doom to some reasonable degree.

“Mangled Cranial Liquefaction” reaches for the open-air gallows of death/doom most clearly in its edged forth advance, building up to a walking groove in its first couple of minutes and cutting through a solid slow-strung thread of riff before blasting through the thought and reprising said thread with more gusto. The effect might potentially read more like slow motion death metal than doom-derived when the pace picks up beyond the hanging foot of death/doom’s step but outside of the moment-to-moment action here it all reads as descent, an echoic plod through a subterranean network of Cerebral Curse‘s design.

We reach the watery granite Hell below within ~17 minute Side B encompassing piece “Degradation Towards Corporeal Dissolution”, the coldest funereal expanse of the lot and the longest sustained doomed stretches enacted on the album. This is the real peak of the experience for my taste, as much as the variety of movement expressed across the breadth of ‘Abominant Incarnations of Sepulchral Depths‘ excites and engages the immersive plod through its extended closer is a clear high point per its heady drifting slog through. They still manage a skip-along push around the ten minute mark but by framing it with a bedraggled hit of lead guitar a certain ‘old school’ cohesion is retained.

Taken in as a full listen in three diverse chapters Cerebral Curse‘s debut album impresses via its obscured voice and the adventurous effect of their flow through its core modes of movement. Production values are fittingly dense but clear, cacophonic in voice but hardly obscured in their support of these three run-on waves. Presentation and style is where ‘Abominant Incarnations of Sepulchral Depths‘ excels most and with more time spent on detailed and/or clever riffcraft the whole of their efforts carries great potential going forward. Taken as-is their work here is well above average, considered as a debut or otherwise, and should impress folks who extend their arms between 90’s death/doom metal ideals and modern neo-death revisionism. A high recommendation.

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