Crucervix

To some, the music of Crucervix may conjure up images of a haunted, abandoned church – the creaking of the old wooden floor, the dust on the altar, the faint smell of long-extinguished incense, and the moonlight permeating the cracked, stained glass windows. All are pictures that are evoked by and reflected in the sound of the irreverent and unsettling compositions.
Based out of Northeastern Pennsylvania, the metal act Crucervix was founded in 2004 by guitarist/composer Petram Crucervix (Peter). Classically trained at the university level, he desired to combine his favorite elements of various musical genres, which included death metal, black metal, gothic metal, film scores, and sacred music. Petram decided to focus on Crucervix individually, as opposed to forming a group, and after many hours of hard work, using barebones equipment, a collection of twelve songs was recorded in the fall of 2007. The first, full-length Crucervix album, “My Dark Angel”, was self-produced by Petram and it was well-received by many critical and casual listeners. The music on that album is often described as “lulling acoustic and vocal passages which are taken to the level of a nightmare by unconventional guitar riffs, relentless percussion, and subhuman throat-work”. With the release of the first album, the ideology behind Crucervix also began to formulate. All of the songs on the album dealt with some sort of betrayal of trust – whether it was in a relationship, a friendship, family, religion, government, or society in general. With these concepts in mind, the name “Crucervix” became even more relevant; the name was first devised from the memory of a famous scene from the horror film “The Exorcist”. The term Crucervix was actually formed from the combination of the two words crucifix and cervix, blatantly symbolizing the falsehoods of religion and femininity/love. That symbolism grew further and took on an even greater meaning as Petram began writing songs for a second album.
The second Crucervix album, “Blood” was released in the fall of 2008. The songs on the recording further solidified the sound and concept of Crucervix; Petram’s compositions seemed to involve greater anger and further disgust for the lack of honesty in everyday life. But, this time the writing was not limited to self-relevant compositions; he first ventured into this external territory on one track from “My Dark Angel”. The song “Ripped from the Womb” was about the highly public case where a woman killed a pregnant neighbor, cut her baby out of her body, and claimed the child as her own. Recognizing that life creates some of the best examples of horror, Petram wrote of some external events which left a similar impression upon him, on the album “Blood”. One song, “Accomplice to Atrocity”, is about the well-known events involving the relationship between a man and woman who used to torture and kill women in what they called “the toy box”. Another track, “The Taste of Human Flesh”, is about a well-known Japanese man who killed and ate a girl whom he was dating. Although some of the new compositions have more of an external focus, “Blood” does still contain introspective writing; Petram delved into personal experience and he found that composing the music for the second album became almost an outlet for skeptical thought, dark musings, and honest emotion.
The music of Crucervix embodies the ideas of logic, reason, empiricism, and rational thought - with a perverse and darkly “religious” twist. While not to be misunderstood as totally misanthropic or nihilistic, Petram continues to sort through the world of appearances while trying to reside in the world of reality. Through adopting a “live and let live” policy and a Satanic-inspired sense of the power of the individual human being, Petram continues to recognize the failures of false appearances and the music of Crucervix will continue to reflect that.
THE SECOND CRUCERVIX CD, ENTITLED "BLOOD" WILL SOON BE AVAILABLE EVERYWHERE!
...new images and tracks coming soon!
Aside from the music, I also review horror movies and conduct interviews at the brilliant and continually deviant website, Infernal Dreams. Visit www.infernaldreams.net for some great horror-related artwork, reviews, and interviews! Click on the link below to go to Infernal Dreams.