Ixone
I am suspecting just a tiny little bit that upon being sent the promotional materials for this album, the choice for this one specifically might just have been a bit personal (opening track “Eigengrau”, I am looking at you). But here I am barely having started the article and already going off on pointless tangents. Flowers of Rust is a project that I have come to know through this album, so I was diving into it with nothing to go off except its description from the previously mentioned material, which, considering my taste lately has been venturing into different corners of black metal, I was a little.. concerned about my capacity of being objective.
Fast forward to me actually sitting down with Crude Exhibitions of the Soul, one of my first impressions was that it came off as a mix of Gratzug’s Pestabei demo, albeit with better productions, and synth work in the vein of Order of Nosferat. I recall one of the bands flowers of rust were described as being similar to were Leviathan, but I’d argue the moods of the two different bands are quite far apart. That or I need to revisit Leviathan. All that being said, while the album is undoubtedly dreary, it is much closer to, as I said, projects such as Gratzug or even Darvulia than Wrest’s work or, another band brought up, Bethlehem. This didn’t affect my enjoyment of the album all that much, though.
Onto the music itself, it is primitive, stripped down to the bone, but not to the point where it reaches what I call Torgeist level. What that means is that the production is raw enough to scare off half of black metal fans, but not so raw that it becomes indecipherable. This goes hand in hand with the songwriting, which is fairly simple, the most dynamic element being the guitar work. That results in the album having a certain groove to it, which is something I found rather enjoyable. Another aspect of the album which I enjoyed was the synth work, since it provided a nice contrast to the rest of the soundscape, giving songs like the title track and “Mother Atrophy” a hint of “airiness” that dampens the scratchiness of the record as a whole a little bit. A track that surprised me specifically was “Brave New Corpse”, which includes an unexpected shift from its main doomy, dirge-like pace to a faster, almost d-beat section accompanied by said synths. It reminded me of the tempo shift on Skuggor’s “Writhe” from their 2025 album Where Sun Resigns, maybe even surpassing that in terms of how surprising it ended up being.
The only major “downside” of the album, or, better said, the part that posed a bit of a challenge to me when getting into it, was that this particular style of black metal was very much right up my alley back when I was 16, as compared to the state in which it is now, at 18. I have been diving deeper and deeper into the more intricate, occultism-driven nooks and crannies of the genre, and as a result, I had partially lost touch with this particular side of it. All that being said, after getting over the initial readjustment discomfort and realizing the songwriting is actually good and the atmosphere is coherent, my opinions shifted a lot from my initial judgement. All that being said, I don’t see myself going back to this particular side of things in the near future. But as a kind of blast from the past listen? Why not?
Leaving aside all the pretentious ramblings I ended up putting the readers of this publication through, I must admit that Crude Exhibitions of the Soul is an undoubtedly solid record, that stands out through its instrumentals and guitar work. At the same time, there are people far better qualified to speak on it than me. But that’s why I’m writing this thing to begin with. Flowers of Rust. Crude Exhibitions of the Soul. Go check it out. Bye bye.
Label: Apocalyptic Witchcraft
Release date: August 7th, 2026
Website: https://www.facebook.com/Flowersofrustofficial
Country: USA
Score: 4.0/5.0
Metal Eclipse Reviews 