Chaos Records

Sepulcrum, Lamentation of Immolated Souls (Chaos 2023)

Wayne Edwards, , , , ,

Death metal band Sepulcrum break new ground on their debut full-length album, Lamentation of Immolated Souls.

Sepulcrum hails from Chile, and formed in 2019. In 2020, they released their inaugural record, the well-regarded EP Corpse Dividing Holes. Notable for the speed and energy they bring to their compositions and performances, fans of the band have been anxiously awaiting new music. Their conjuring spells have been answered by Lamentation of Immolated Souls. The band is Nicolás Miranda (vocals, guitar), Sebastián Zúñiga (drums), Oscar Gibert (guitar), and Nicolás Espinoza (bass).

There are ten tracks on the new record, including an interstitial. The first crack is “Orbital Teratoma.” The title invokes horrifying images, and the music that goes along with it is suitably visceral, especially the growling vocals. The lead guitar break is a spreading riot. An excellent opener. “Schizophrenic Amputation” has a lot of hardcore and punk appeal in its velocity and also in the singing. The speed is infectious. The title track follows, a short horrifying blister-raiser that leaves not only an impression but also a scar. The pace resets on the ninety second instrumental, “The Decay,” which is dramatic and whimsical. Taken together, these four songs are a compelling opening arc.

The music is high-energy death metal, often testing the border between death and thrash. You can hear this clearly on songs like “Arousing The Putrid Flesh,” but really, almost all of the tracks. There is a lot of speed here. And then there will suddenly be a song like “Caustic Inhalation” which begins with a slow, sweet refrain. True, the peace does not last long and a heavy stomping takes the stage before a minute has passed, but the quiet moment might foreshadow the transitory elements of doom that live in the song as well. The final breath is “Traumatized by Insanity,” a track loaded with velocity, homage, doom, death, and callbacks. It is a killer, and so is the entire set. Recommended.

Lamentation of Immolated Souls is available on Friday, March 17th through Chaos Records. Peruse the links below for more details.

Links.

Bandcamp, https://chaos-records.bandcamp.com/album/lamentation-of-immolated-souls

Chaos Records, https://www.chaos-records.com/

© Wayne Edwards

Sepulcrum, Lamentation of Immolated Souls (Chaos 2023)

Sacrilegion, From Which Nightmares Crawl (Chaos Records 2022)

Wayne Edwards, , , , , ,

The debut album from Salt Lake City death metal band Sacrilegion will darken your dreams: From Which Nightmares Crawl.

Sacrilegion is but four years old. They dropped a demo early, then worked diligently in the intervening years honing sound and craft to create their debut full-length album, From Which Nightmares Crawl. Provisioned against mediocrity, the music blends and alternates death metal with groove, melody, and dark vileness, achieving results not often heard elsewhere. The band is Connor G. Carlson (vocals, guitar), Geronimo Santa Cruz (guitar), Alex Seolas (bass), and Ashton J. Childs (drums).

The curtain opens on “A Terrible Pilgrimage To Seek The Nighted Throne,” a sideways and sour squeeze that straightens out and drives directly to your brain. The steady clomp gets banged around by surprising entrants, tossing the groove to the floor then picking it up again. It is a bruising death metal piece enhanced with edges and weight. “Puritanical Dementia” crashes through the door next, bringing a rampage with it. Like an explosion that won’t stop, this song runs you ragged. “Tainting The Sky With Red” is more of a scheduled degradation in that it hangs onto linearity a bit more – but not completely by any means. By the time the title track arrives, you feel like you are being hunted. No place to run, no escape. This song is a shaggy, croaking masterpiece.

Already taken and overcome, you might need a break before finishing the record, but finish it you must. Songs like “Legacy Of The Impaler” await you, where the infernal is exposed and let loose on an unprepared world. The chop of the middle riff is terminal. “Creaking Shadows” tastes of black metal and touches dark poison to your lips. Great song, this one, but then none of them go wrong. This album is a killer, front to back. Recommended.

From Which Nightmares Crawl is out on Friday, December 9th through Chaos Records on digital, CD, cassette, and vinyl. Check it out at the links below.

Links.

Sacrilegion website, https://www.sacrilegion.com/

Bandcamp, https://sacrilegion.bandcamp.com/album/from-which-nightmares-crawl

Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/Sacrilegion/

Chaos Records, https://www.chaos-records.com/

© Wayne Edwards

Sacrilegion, From Which Nightmares Crawl (Chaos Records 2022)

Deconsecration, Crypt Lurker (Chaos Records 2022)

Wayne Edwards, , , , , , ,

Crypt Lurker is the new album from Seattle death metal band Deconsecration, their first full-length studio release.

Deconsecration is a new band, having its origins in the Pacific Northwest in 2019. They have been revving up the whole time with a demo, a live album, and a split with Re-Buried. Their music will spark OSDM nostalgia now and then, combined with fluid and caustic innovations that make it undeniably from our time. The band is Moises Pimentel (bass), H. Murder (drums), Dylan Benedict (guitar), Jordan Garcia (guitar), and Zach Raphael (vocals).

It all begins on a doom stroke with the title track. Weird noises and rattlings lead into deadly heavy riffs and ominously croaking vocals. The screws get turned and the tempo picks up soon enough. Instead of the feeling that you are wandering through a mist-shrouded forest after dark that you had when the song began, you now have the piercing sensation of being in an active torture chamber. If you survive and make it outside, “Cephalic Fermentation” is the next tombstone you trip over. It is a chaotic, panic-inducing thrashing from the very beginning. By the time “Putrescent Birth” rolls around, you start to believe you are in a dark, damp corner of an abandoned Cannibal Corpse castle.

The album is solid throughout. The interconnectedness of the old school death metal elements, the doom, and the periodic splash of blackened thrash is excellent. My favorite tracks come at the end. “Plague Cadaver” is beautifully cinematic with relentless percussion and “Bells Upon the Graves” is an enduring testament to hopelessness. Recommended.

Crypt Lurker is out now through Chaos Records in digital, CD, and vinyl. Stump Grinder Records will be issuing a cassette. Check it out at the links below.

Links.

Deconsecration website, https://deconsecration.com/

Bandcamp, https://deconsecration.bandcamp.com/album/crypt-lurker

Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/deconsecrationseattle

Stump Grinder Records, https://stumpgrinderrecords.bigcartel.com/

Chaos Records, https://www.chaos-records.com/

© Wayne Edwards

Deconsecration, Crypt Lurker (Chaos Records 2022)

Mortify, Fragments At The Edge Of Sorrow (Chaos Records 2022)

Wayne Edwards, , , , ,

Chilean death metal band Mortify release their second full-length album, Fragments At The Edge Of Sorrow.

If you type Mortify into the search bar at The Metal Archives you will get a list of twelve bands. You are looking for the one from Concepción, Chile. Formed in 2013, they have a demo, an EP, and a previous long-player, Mortuary Remains (2017), under their belts. The new album delivers on the notched-up expectations created by their previous work. The band is Alonso Villar (drums), Benjamín Araneda (guitar), Cristian Fuentes (guitar, vocals), and Diego Gonzalez (bass).

There are twelve tracks on the new record, including a couple of filaments. As a concept, “Beneath The Emptiness” has catastrophic implications, and so it is a good way to start off. Actualized as it is in Mortify’s song, the depth and reach of the possibilities are realized. The croaking vocals and syncopated percussion blend in seamlessly with the black magical guitar intertwists. It plays directly into the hands of the following track, “In The Amorphous Path,” which is pure villainy. The dark musical rapture here chokes the life from any tentative pulse that might have hitherto remained. Do not be fooled by the lyrical passages – there is no full and true escape.

Short pieces like “Fragments” can even tip you over. It seems serene but just past halfway through, something goes awry and you start to wonder what you are hearing – or more directly: what does what you’re hearing mean. You can think about it deeply or shallowly and you’ll get a punch either way. Just a different kind of one, depending.

There are many stand-out tracks even among the general excellence of the set. “Mindless” is an instrumental piece and it is also a stone cold killer. “Contaminated Echoes” is one I still think about, with its homages to earlier metal and its rambling roughness. You should put this album in your listening queue immediately. Recommended.

Fragments At The Edge Of Sorrow is out through Chaos Records on digital and CD on Friday, March 25th.

Links.

Bandcamp, https://chaos-records.bandcamp.com/album/fragments-at-the-edge-of-sorrow

Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/MortifyDeathMetal/

Chaos Records, https://www.chaos-records.com/

© Wayne Edwards. All rights reserved.

Mortify, Fragments At The Edge Of Sorrow (Chaos Records 2022)

Thorn, Yawning Depths (Chaos Records 2022)

Wayne Edwards, , , , , , ,

Brennen Westermeyer has a new album under his solo project banner Thorn on the way, Yawning Depths.

According to the press release: “Cavernous, brooding, and bleak, Thorn is a solo project of erstwhile Fluids vocalist Brennen Westermeyer. From the deserts of Phoenix, Thorn specializes in the foreboding and ominous. Weaving elements of death metal, doom, post, and grind, Thorn creates a soundscape for worshipping pagan gods and making offerings to entities unknown.”

I find the description to be quite accurate. Take a look at the cover image. That is what the music sounds like – being chewed, swallowed, and digested by a gap-mouth horror. In some ways, this album runs like a sequel to last year’s Crawling Worship. In my head, anyway.

There are eight tracks on the new album. I am going to go ahead and label this death metal music. There are other elements swimming in there, too – most notably a tasty doom sensibility that rears its handsome head occasionally. Still, death metal suits the set pretty well.

It is a brief affair but it has titanic moments. I was absolutely floored by “Noxious Existence,” and the sorrowful “Lapis Lazuli” took my breath away with its dark, mesmerizing beauty. The grinding crunch of doomy “Unknown Body of Light” burbles to the surface of my consciousness from time to time even now, and the closer, “Graven Moonglow,” is a show-stopper, and no mistake. I like the commitment in this music, the unswerving menace created in the compositions that is so well executed in the performance. Well done. Recommended.

Yawning Depths begins breaking hearts on Friday, February 4th with the CD and digital, out through Chaos Records with the vinyl version to follow later in the year. Gurgling Gore has the cassette.

Links.

Bandcamp, https://thornx.bandcamp.com/

Chaos Records, https://www.chaos-records.com/

Thorn, Yawning Depths (Chaos Records 2022)