Today, progressive black metallers Crystal Coffin reveal the new video “The Vortex of Earth and Death.” The track is the first to be revealed from the band’s highly anticipated third album, The Curse of Immortality, set for international release on October 31st via A Beast in the Field. See & hear Crystal Coffin‘s “The Vortex of Earth and Death” HERE at the band’s official YouTube channel.
Crystal Coffin are a melodic black metal trio from Vancouver, Canada that was formed in 2016 by Aron Shute (vocals, bass guitar), Lenkyn Ostapovich (guitars, synths, piano, scapes, secondary vocals), and Rob Poirier (drums). Comprised of members from previous Vancouver acts Destroy All, Koma, and Caskets, their music references their love for 1970s/’80s Italian horror cinema, sci-fi storytelling, and philosophies. Crystal Coffin combines black metal styles with influences of prog and ambient/electronic music while re-imagining 20th and 21st century atrocities as poetry and melody.
Combining a love for vintage horror, folk, history, storytelling, and other esoteric influences, Crystal Coffin released their debut album, The Transformation Room, in March 2020 to favorable reviews. The album presented scenes of the Holodomor famine that tore families and villages apart in Soviet-era Ukraine during the early 1930s and contained lyrics and music that were washed in pathos, both brutal and beautiful. The band’s second full-length, The Starway Eternal, released in October 2021, embraced a sci-fi concept utilizing the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Pripyat, Ukraine as a backdrop for fantastical storytelling. This second album expanded their progressive inclinations and infused a new confidence into their songwriting, helping to solidify themes and sounds that would steer the band’s next direction. Rightly so, The Starway Eternal garnered Crystal Coffin even more attention, setting expectations for their third album considerably higher.
And, amazingly, they’ve eclipsed those expectations. The Curse of Immortality, releasing on Halloween day 2023, leverages similar storytelling themes but looks forward into a future where the limitations on existence are no more, for better or for worse. Less a formal concept album from its predecessor, the eight tracks loosely depict a protagonist whose failed attempts at suicide have placed him into a rehabilitation center wherein clandestine medical personnel experiment on the captured and unconscious patients at night in chambers below. Through a combination of cryogenetics, evil rites, and state control, the subject involuntarily becomes the first successful completed case for verified immortality – a life that will no longer require death. The music and the lyrics found throughout are darker, heavier, and faster than anything Crystal Coffin have released and stand as the sonic culmination of the band’s efforts and intentions over the past six years.
As always, form and content go hand in hand for the band, and the characteristically detailed cover artwork (once again by Ostapovich) as well as “classified document”-style inner sleeve vividly complete the totality of The Curse of Immortality. Altogether, the album stands as Crystal Coffin‘s boldest and most complete work to date.
In the meantime, see & hear the brand-new video “The Vortex of Earth and Death” HERE at Crystal Coffin‘s official YouTube channel. Additionally, hear the audio of the track HERE at Crystal Coffin‘s Bandcamp, where the album can also be preordered. Aforementioned cover artwork and tracklisting are as follows:
Tracklisting for Crystal Coffin’s The Curse of Immortality
1. Shadows Never Cast [6:15]
2. The Undead [5:08]
3. The Vortex of Earth and Death [4:19]
4. Final Breaths [5:36]
5. Cryogenesis [6:00]
6. Rise [3:42]
7. Leviathans Encased [5:54]
8. The Closing of the Crystal Coffin [5:36]
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