{"id":43456,"date":"2025-09-04T16:22:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T16:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/43456\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T16:22:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T16:22:07","slug":"cult-burial-collapse-of-pattern-reverence-of-dust-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/43456\/","title":{"rendered":"Cult Burial – Collapse of Pattern, Reverence of Dust Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"It has always overwhelmed me just how much music is out there, ceaselessly being recorded in studios and basements and forests, ceaselessly being promoted and released, and often sent into the AMG promo pile. There is so much more below the surface than above it, even as regards just one small subgenre. How can one possibly listen to it all, and discern greatness from mediocrity? How can bands stand out when countless others are branding themselves so similarly, making music so apparently similar? Cult Burial<\/strong> are one such band that I would likely never have come across were it not for this gig, despite the generally positive reception both their debut and sophomore albums received (the latter also coming from me). In that review<\/a>, I highlighted what I perceived to be a distinctiveness to the band\u2019s sound, their particular mixture of death, black, and post-metal sounding just different enough to give them an edge, minor hiccoughs notwithstanding. Then, Cult Burial<\/strong> was in the perfect position to capitalize on these unique strengths and refine the formula, and it is after two years in the shadows that the fruit of their labors falls into my hands.<\/p>\n

LP 3, Collapse of Pattern, Reverence of Dust, is immediately and strikingly more imposing than its predecessor. More menacing in its melodies and more aggressive in its stronger leanings towards deathened territory, it also sounds literally sharper, with fewer instances of guitar being relegated to a background bit-part and more of them center-stage in the leading role. The music is atmospheric in a similarly echoing way, again recalling Praise the Plague<\/strong>, but now this atmosphere treads into the more unsettling territory accompanied by jarring chord progressions, akin to Akhlys<\/strong> (\u201cVincula,\u201d \u201cVestige\u201d), or even Blut Aus Nord<\/strong> (\u201cMire\u201d), though decidedly less manic. This new sense of malice goes a long way toward giving Cult Burial<\/strong> a stronger hold on the listener, and helping them avoid the issue of image-sound incongruence that haunted Reverie of the Malignant.<\/p>\n

\ufeffCollapse of Pattern, Reverence of Dust by Cult Burial<\/a><\/p>\n

What hasn\u2019t changed about Cult Burial<\/strong>\u2019s approach is their preferred compositional structure. Sticking with relatively brief song lengths, they rely on melodic and rhythmic hooks (\u201cAether,\u201d \u201cVestige\u201d) that keep the pace high between the atmospheric intros and interludes, rather than extended creeping builds. This risk didn\u2019t entirely pay off in the last outing, but Collapse of Pattern sees a renewed vigor that makes songs, which pack in blackened doom and death in a signature smoky style with a more \u2018conventional\u2019 black or death metal solo or bridge, tonally fluid despite their fluctuations. The prevailing tone of meanness is a markedly more consistent and coherent than previously, and this now shines through most strongly where Cult Burial<\/strong> turn to the tangled zone of dissonance in their extreme metal leanings, which takes the humming chords and minor melodies\u2014not to mention the pleasantly audible purr of the bass\u2014into a realm of creepy that\u2019s thoroughly, spine-tinglingly enjoyable (\u201cVincula,\u201d \u201cEnthrall,\u201d \u201cBeseech\u201d).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The main problem is that, however cool or chilling various passages are\u2014and they are\u2014Collapse of Pattern never does enough to fully arrest its audience. A seeming impatience to get to the next bit compounds paradoxically with a reluctance to ever progress beyond the inevitable switch from slower intro to faster heaviness. It makes the music feel underdeveloped in two senses. On the one hand, by lack of builds and by not actually possessing the presence they tease with an overly mysterious and surface-level atmospheric aura\u2014marked by heavy resonance. On the other hand, by the near absence of dynamism in the yet fickle and multifaceted compositions, which sway from an ominous death-doom into a distinctly tech-death acerbity. While Cult Burial<\/strong> made strides when it comes to improving their overall vibe\u2014as in, there\u2019s no longer a strange tonal separation between different songs as there was before\u2014their music indicates that they still feel unsure of their identity. Simultaneously trying too hard to sound dark and huge and frightening, and not trying hard enough to craft a convincingly solid presence that would justify it.<\/p>\n

Collapse of Pattern feels like one step forward, two steps back. On every listen, I am drawn in by opener \u201cVincula\u201d\u2018s malevolently stomping, eerily moaning refrain. By the time I have reached its back half, however, it no longer grips me; songs bleed together and dissolve. Cult Burial<\/strong> may still have something great in them, but until they dive fully into the void or write some killer riffs, they are doomed to fade into obscurity.<\/p>\n

Rating:<\/strong> Mixed
DR:<\/strong> 6 | Format Reviewed:<\/strong> 320 kbps mp3
Label:<\/strong> Self-Released
Websites: <\/strong>cultburial.com <\/a>| cultburial.bandcamp.com<\/a> | facebook.com\/cultburial<\/a>
Released Worldwide:<\/strong> September 5th, 2025<\/p>\n

\n\tGive in to Your Anger:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It has always overwhelmed me just how much music is out there, ceaselessly being recorded in studios and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43457,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[264],"tags":[7738,1135,32788,7740,12055,32789,32790,32791,32792,7281,18,117,19,17,337,32793,1142,1143,7745,31249,32794],"class_list":{"0":"post-43456","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-2-5","9":"tag-1135","10":"tag-akhlys","11":"tag-black-metal","12":"tag-blackened-death-metal","13":"tag-blackened-doom","14":"tag-blut-aus-nord","15":"tag-collapse-of-pattern-reverence-of-dust","16":"tag-cult-burial","17":"tag-death-metal","18":"tag-eire","19":"tag-entertainment","20":"tag-ie","21":"tag-ireland","22":"tag-music","23":"tag-praise-the-plague","24":"tag-review","25":"tag-reviews","26":"tag-self-releases","27":"tag-sep25","28":"tag-uk-metal"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}