Sweden’s (where else?) Puteraeon are comprised largely of C-level death metal musicians, as in those who have done time in bands who have not been successful in their endeavors to climb the Scandinavian metal ladder. Such difficulties are understandable given the highly-competitive nature of the scene in which they hail from, but it also doesn’t make Puteraeon all that of an enticing prospect either. Their third album The Crawling Chaos is appropriately saucy and Left Hand Path-gone, at least mildly salvageable for its ability to not fully take the plunge to rip-off land. Grasping at straws here, really…
No way could one flake out on the guitar tone found here – it’s monstrous, a sonic step barely behind the best of Sunlight Studios, the place where the bedeviled chainsaw guitar tone took flight. So by simply riding those coattails, Peteraeon is able to slop, romp, and elbow their way through ten songs that don’t require too much sequestering of brain cells. The primal push of “Path to Oblivion” is of course, total Entombed circa 1991, just without the labyrinthine riffing, but don’t sleep on the killer groove it collapses into around the 51-second mark. “From the Ethereal Vortex” is the album’s standalone mid-tempo monger, roaming like a listless corpse ala Bloodbath’s better moments, and Leprosy-era Death.
Additional tracks of note include the pillaging, D-beat laden “The Abyssal” and standout “Rotten Aeon,” which is probably about as far as a band like Puteraeon can go in terms of clinging to the Stockholm sound. Still, mad props to the searing production job, which may be the only thing that will get more discerning folks out of bed for an album like The Crawling Chaos. Less-forgiving and more opportunistic listeners would be advised to look elsewhere.