Aversions Crown – Hell Will Come for Us All (Review)

This is the fourth album from Aversions Crown, a death metal/deathcore band from Australia.

2016’s Xenocide was an exemplar of modern brutality, with its alien melodies and extraterrestrial themes. Hell Will Come for Us All is a different beast; although still recognisably the same band in some respects, the Aversions Crown of 2020 is more grounded in the present, with a corresponding increase in brutally destructive heaviness, and a sound more reminiscent of some of their peers.

Aversions Crown seem to have ramped up the aggression on their latest release. Speed and intensity are deployed liberally, with lethally effective results. Brute-force deathcore elements can be heard too, of course, merged with the blistering death metal seamlessly. Fusing together a sometimes-technical concoction of modern death metal and deathcore, Hell Will Come for Us All is a thoroughly enjoyable slab of brutality. Dropping many of the sci-fi themes from previous releases, it nonetheless hits the spot very well for anyone into bands like Thy Art Is Murder and Fit for an Autopsy.

The songs are well-written and passionate, combing hooks and catchiness with brutal aggression in very moreish ways. These are the sort of songs that lend themselves very well to the gym, I find, and I can assure you this will find heavy rotation for me in that setting. The band’s use of atmosphere within the mayhem they create is notable when it’s used, adding depth. This helps raise the album above many similar releases that focus purely on heaviness or brutality. It’s less embedded than it was on Xenocide, however, and absent from large parts of some of the songs, losing some of the band’s unique flavour.

The band have a new singer, and he acquits himself nicely across these songs. Adopting a deathcore-style delivery and range, his vocals are impassioned and well-used, frequently delivering satisfying vocal patterns across the tracks.

Despite the changes to the band’s sound, Hell Will Come for Us All is a solid and enjoyable album. It may not contain much that you haven’t heard before, but that doesn’t seem to be the point; this is an album of escapist brutality, one which I’ll gladly be playing much more in the future.

Recommended for fans of modern heaviness everywhere.