Creeping Death – Boundless Domain
Release Date: 16th June 2023
Label: MNRK Heavy
Bandcamp
Genre: Death Metal
FFO: Gorguts, Grave, Blood Red Throne, Undeath.
Review By: Eric Wilt
When you think of Texas metal, there’s a good chance death metal isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. That’s about to change. From up-and-coming death metal darlings like Frozen Soul and 200 Stab Wounds to underground bashers like Fleshrot and Tribal Gaze, Texas metal is more than just the Cowboys from Hell. Another death metal band on the rise that calls Texas home is Creeping Death, and they are poised to unleash their new full length onto the world on June 16. Billing themselves as Texas death metal, Creeping Death mixes death metal’s past with death metal’s present, and AJ Ross III adds in a heaping helping of Texas hardcore and thrash for good measure. Made up of Reese Alavi on vocals, Trey Pemberton and on guitar, Eric ‘Rico’ Mejia on bass, and Lincoln Mullins on drums, Creeping Death takes the ground-rumbling death metal of a band like Frozen Soul and mixes it with the in-your-face intensity of a band like Power Trip, and the results are good, if not great.
Creeping Death’s debut full length, Wretched Illusions, was full of modern-day death metal tinged with some good ol’ OSDM. Boundless Domain picks up where Wretched Illusions left off, albeit with more of the hardcore influence of fellow Texas bands like Power Trip and Iron Age (both of whom lost members around the time Creeping Death was writing their new album). As a whole, Boundless Domain doesn’t grab me and pull me in the way Wretched Illusions did. While Creeping Death proves that they can write quality death metal songs, there aren’t many moments on the album that stand out to me. Intestinal Wrap is an exceptional track due to the fact that Corpsegrinder guests on it, and he blows shit up, as you would expect. Remnants of the Old Gods is another banger that sees Creeping Death briefly venturing into the realm of death-doom, and it works well. I would actually have liked to seen them break up some of the other songs with similar death-doom parts. The rest of the album is good but will likely get lost in the mass of other, better death metal albums that have come out, or are coming out, this year.
Creeping Death is a great death metal band, and I believe Boundless Domain will be a steppingstone to an even stronger band and future releases. As a fan, I am already looking forward to what comes next for them. Fans of Creeping Death and death metal in general should still check out Boundless Domain because, even though it’s not the album I was hoping for from them, it is a good death metal album, and you never know, it may just become your new favorite.
(3 / 5)
