Hexorcist – Crucificial Imprecations
Release Date: 31st July 2026
Label: Invictus Productions
Bandcamp
Genre: Death/Thrash Metal
FFO: Sijjin, Morbid Angel, Possessed, Angelcorpse, Sadistic Intent.
Review By: Aeons Burning
Having never heard of this band before grabbing the promo because it looked cool, I’m certainly glad I took a chance here, because Hexorcist are firm worshippers of the olden style of death metal when it was still in its infancy stages. I love the olde sound, and Crucificial Imprecations is exactly that: half an hour of no-nonsense, evil sounding death metal that I can easily see sitting beside Sijjin on the modern pantheon of actual old-school sounding death metal bands instead of the flagrant use of the genre label that Rate Your Music likes to perpetuate as “OSDM” when in reality these bands don’t sound anything like how the TRVE old school death metal bands used to sound. Crucificial Imprecations delivers exactly what I look for when I reach for this sound, and they do it in such a trim runtime.
And no wonder Hexorcist have that old sound, because they have the legendary Gene Palubicki (Angelcorpse, Perdition Temple, Malefic Throne, many more) at the helm. There’s no corny intros on Crucificial Imprecations, only a brief build-up in the first and second tracks before it’s an all-out riff assault. I’m a big fan in particular how menacing this is from front to back, with Palubicki’s trademark evil rasps in conjunction with the absolutely pulse-pounding blasts and evil sounding riffs. There’s no real highlight track here, as all of them are absolutely feral sounding and could have been lost relics from the early age of death metal had this not been a current year release. Everyone does top-notch work on Crucificial Imprecations, and this album as a whole exudes a pervading menace like that of a shark circling its prey before going in for the kill.
Hexorcist has wowed me. I’m a huge fan of what they’re doing, as I love this particular style of death metal, and while it won’t be making my year-end list, it’s just good solid headbanging chaos that makes me want to listen again. This ain’t your “traditional” old school death metal like what collective review sites would want you to believe, but instead it’s an actual relic that could have been released in the late 1980s or early 1990s amongst the first wave of death metal acts, much like Sijjin, and delivers its vitriolic hymns with the fervor I expect and want from an album that sounds like this. I absolutely recommend this.
(4 / 5)
