The Cage of Existence

The Cage of Existence is a decent thrash-y death metal album. It's got thrash elements, but leans mostly towards extreme metal or brutal death metal: death metal vocals, blast beats and death metal style drumming, along with some thrash-y guitarwork. By the way, we're not talking about melodic death metal or Gothenburg-style stuff; this is extreme metal, with only a drop of melody. Like Cerberus's later albums, the sound reminds me of The Crown and Lamb of God. It's uncompromising, intense stuff.

The album starts with "Fractured Extraction", which is brutal death metal, full of blast beats and thrashy riffs. Not my thing so much and not a promising introduction, but don't worry; it gets better. The next track is "From Within", which starts with a minute of gently strummed guitar, then gradually builds to a more brutal, full-speed, full-bore extreme metal. "Hostility" has long instrumental segments and alternates between the death metal and some more melodic passages, providing a nice contrast. The title track, "The Cage of Existence", is slower but almost as brutal -- and it is long. "Brutal Remains" has a nice, but all too short, guitar solo in the middle of it. "The Path..." is a short acoustic guitar instrumental that serves as a great interlude; it relieves some of the pressure built up by the brutality of the previous tracks, provides contrast, and then immediately segues into "The Gates of Mercy", which is back to the unrelenting full-bore stuff. I really like the combination. "Possessed" brings back the blast beats, but it's also got this interesting sound effect where the combination of the bass guitar and the drums sound amazingly like short bursts of machine gun fire. The lead guitars in "Possessed" are great, and it's got several nice solos -- Cerberus really thrashes out here. "Until Death" returns to the brutal thrash-y death. "Futile Ambition" closes out the album nicely with a track that captures the overall feel of the entire album in a single song. It's full of angry vocals, punctuated by a few softer interludes that then build back up to brutal thrashing and some chunky, catchy, simple guitar riffs that get repeated until they are burned into your brain.

For folks who want to try Cerberus for the first time, I'm not sure whether to recommend this album over Cerberus's more recent "Dispute The Truth". They're both highly representative of Cerberus's sound and of comparable quality. "Dispute The Truth" is a more pure, consistent album, with slightly superior production. "The Cage of Existence" has more variation and contrast, which feels like a plus to me. "The Cage of Existence" is also a bit more brutal and a bit less polished than "Dispute The Truth". Either one would be a good introduction to Cerberus, so if you want to try this band, I'd probably recommend picking up whichever is cheapest.

Overall, there's nothing especially unusual or new here, though it's reasonably well-done. Recommended only for completists or folks who really love this kind of stuff.