Imperial Crystalline Entombment – Abominable Astral Summoning
Release Date: 11th July 2025
Label: Debemur Morti Productions
Bandcamp
Genre: Black Metal
FFO: Emperor, Gorgoroth, Dissection, Mayhem.
Review By: Jeff Finch
Conjured up in the mind, the snow flashes by, a blizzard amongst the trees, white as far as the eyes can see. It’s cold, it’s dark, there’s a chilling silence that seeps into the bones as it passes through the ears, the deafening lack of noise and movement a sign that this is what being alone feels like: despondent, deserted, a physical discomfort manifested. Black Metal, the genre that can stir up these thoughts and images as it mercilessly pummels listeners and drains their every last breath, pure exhaustion and emptiness presiding over the mind as the musical experience is digested. Imperial Crystalline Entombment, ICE for short, places themselves amongst the best of their contemporaries with this newest record Abominable Astral Summoning, an album that conjures up the darkness and white landscapes of early Norwegian Black Metal, all while hailing from Maryland.
For the vast majority of this record, I was convinced that this group was Scandinavian, with music that’s similar to the songs of yore, bringing with it blistering percussion, throat shredding shrieks, and a bevy of riffs that would make even the most callous and jaded metalhead crack a smile. Tremolo riffs abound on each of these tracks, but not with a ferocity that exists to solely create speed and chaos. No, the riffs on this album shift in tone, shift in pace, match the groove of the percussion, swinging into an ungodly fury when the moment calls for it. Vocally, this is black metal through and through: raspy, throaty shrieks over inhumanly paced music, the vocals evoking an intensity, a raw aggression that allows listeners to process and purge deep emotions like anger, grief, and despair all while banging their head because the riffs are sick.
Though not entirely the point of the record, it is that blistering, laser focused, light-speed pace that gives this album even more power: the shifts in sound are quick, precise, the main groove back before we know it, the listeners sitting there slack jawed as the entire band alters their pace, the technical fury of the drum fills giving way to blast beats, the tremolo riffs yielding to some straight death metal riffage, all while our vocalist is reaching the apex of his range, the howling shrieks sending shivers down one’s spine, breaking them out in goose flesh, the band not afraid to push themselves to the brink, the very edge of the chasm where all that stares back is the void.
This newest album by Imperial Crystalline Entombment is an experience, not just an album for casual listening. For a modern American black metal band to conjure up images of early Emperor and Gorgoroth is an impressive feat by any measurement, and the band gives their all here to allow its listeners to find solace in the chaos, to find warmth amongst the ice, and to let the world know that this ICE is actually a good ICE.
(5 / 5)
