Serpent Corpse: Blood Sabbath
Out 5th July on Temple of Mystery Records
Montreal’s Serpent Corpse offer up an honest if underdeveloped debut of basic death metal signifiers on ‘Blood Sabbath’. A concoction of Swedish d-beat and the playful loose blues of Autopsy weaves into a recasting of death metal as an exercise in repetition. Songs are made up of a mere handful of riffs, drawn out in painstaking reiterations, given greater mileage by the generally slower tempos Serpent Corpse work within. Some tracks consist of barely two or three riffs, pivoting on the exchange of dirt simple ideas and reliance on a powerful guitar tone and reverb drenched vocals to inject a degree of intrigue.
Production wise, it should be noted that ‘Blood Sabbath’ ticks all the right boxes as far as making a show of authenticity is concerned. An overbearing guitar tone dominates the mix, meaning the listener’s focus is drawn to the backbone of primitive atonality offered by the rhythm guitar. Ancillary lead work does offer a peripheral flavouring of character at times, but for the most part the overall philosophy is decidedly meagre. Guitar solos or elaborated lead melodies are conspicuous by their absence (for the most part). Basic if supressed drums tow the line of simple interchanges between slow Bolt Thrower style marches and d-beat gallops. The performance is playful, but sadly not up to the challenge of imbuing these pieces with the colour and life lacking in the surrounding instrumentation.
There are moments indicative of a more engaged approach to composition, as on the centrepiece number ‘The Land of Rot and Misfortune’ which exhibits at least some dramatic stakes. But the real lesson of ‘Blood Sabbath’ is lack of commitment in any particular direction. The riffs connect up effectively enough, but each individual component fails to set itself apart from anything we’ve heard before. And there are simply too few elements to sink the teeth into. That being said, Serpent Corpse hint at a compelling minimalism often unexplored in a death metal setting. The frugal approach to riffing almost looks like a deliberate attempt to subvert the overstuffed convention of the genre at times, but this idea is not carried far enough to develop into a statement worthy of attention.
The packaging of this album is impeccable, with a muscular guitar tone, convincing vocal performance, and suitably aggressive drumming. But it is sadly not enough to breathe life into this otherwise rather flat affair of simplistic death metal. The logic of Serpent Corpse’s formula makes sense on paper, but the spirit required to bring it to life and give it purpose still awaits fruition.
Orelisk: The Underworld Obscura
Out 30th June on Northern Spire Productions
People that criticise artists for sticking to the rulebook often forget to examine the actual contents of the book itself. This is especially so for black metal. This was a genre that was gloriously daring by definition, and immediately established a breadth and depth of imagination within its DNA, requiring artists’ adherence to high standards of originality to even qualify for the definition of “black metal”. Sure, there are always hordes of unimaginative imitators, but that’s not a problem with the rulebook, that’s a problem with the misapplication of the rulebook and the bandwagon jumping mentality inherent in any cultural stream.
Playing by the rules doesn’t mean playing it safe. As evinced by the debut album from Michigan’s Orelisk. ‘The Underworld Obscura’ is a by-the-numbers exercise in garden variety Nordic black metal, with elements of high melodicism combined with the dirty, lo-fi riffage of Bathory, and some idiosyncratic dramatic flourishes along the way.
The production is raw, but self-consciously so. Earthy drums retain an abrasive immediacy despite the application of precision reverb reminiscent of ‘De Mysteriis Dom. Sathanas’, granting them a seat at the table when it comes to delivering the high drama stretching across this album. Guitars pivot between tinny swirls of atmosphere of the classic style, whilst retaining a dirty bass rumble lending weight and gravitas to proceedings. An exploration of aggression as much as it is cold reflection. High pitched black metal crooning completes the picture, bringing the melodramatic moment to bear by fully committing to the performance.
The secret of this album’s success is not hard to grasp. There is therefore no unique angle to take or additional commentary required to explain it. The riffing backbone offers a convincing dynamism and fluidity, allowing the tracks to float past in a manner both engaging yet pleasingly familiar. Sprinkled atop this bread-and-butter framework are myriad harmonic accents, jolting pauses allowing space for eccentric refrains to break loose and create tension, and simple yet effective atmospheric flourishes that build the character of the album, setting it aside from the scene despite the obviously conservative musical philosophy.
‘The Underworld Obscura’ is an album that sticks closely to the rulebook, but it takes this philosophy seriously, using the full variety and range of traditionalist approaches, reminding us that the direct approach within black metal is still one with a breadth and depth often overlooked by traditionally minded artists as much as the explicitly experimental. A pleasing reaffirmation of classical virtues.
Sektarism: Et Facta Est Lux
Out 30th June on EAL Productions
Combining the loose improvisational theatre of early Abruptum, the eccentric ritualism of Neptunian Maximalism, and a heavy dose of dark ambient/funeral doom cross pollination, France’s Sektarism whip up a tentative brew of mood music for their latest LP ‘Et Facta Est Lux’. Split into two lengthy tracks that function more as explorations of texture, dynamics, and atmosphere than teleologically minded compositions, this album is nevertheless a highly controlled environment. Despite the improvisational approach to the writing process, the alchemy of genres overlapping on the Venn diagram of sonic drone is just so, with each ingredient designed to cast a wide net of appeal in terms of listenership.
Chanting drones set the scene by creating a meditative state, with deep atmospheric tracts giving the effect of ancient ritualism, an expression of theological fanaticism all but anathema to modern Western listeners. But Sektarism, despite the explicit incrementalism of their style, are not content with resting on their stylistic laurels for long, introducing a – by comparison to its setting – rather domestic post hardcore groove, with earthy guitars beefing up the sound with mild hints of dissonance. Repetition is retained, meaning the leaps from genre to genre, from antiquity to modernism, are given a thread of coherence.
But as the formula is stretched out across the album, with passages bleeding from grim but run-of-the-mill doom trappings, to avant-gardist noise, to vocal theatrics, back to austere dark ambience, one cannot help but leave with the impression that this is a box ticking exercise, despite the obvious and not unsuccessful attempts at eccentricity.
‘Et Facta Est Lux’ performs its function well as a conveyor belt of immersive, elongated moments of dark and abstract rumination. But when compared to antecedent works operating in similar territory, albeit with perhaps a little more commitment to one genre or the other, this comes across as an artist going through the motions. A heavy doom riff runs its course, so we switch to a vocal performance, dark ambience runs out of mileage, let’s build the drums back in, rinse and repeat until we have an LP’s worth of material. This is the subtle art of contrast deployed as a necessity rather than creative choice. Dynamics are an underutilised weapon in the extreme metal arsenal, but as with any compositional tool, they require effective integration with other elements in order to function, and are simply not capable of carrying the day on their own.
‘Et Facta Est Lux’ is far from a total dud, and Sektarism are more than capable of articulating a distinct identity. But there are far worthier albums in comparable fields that have more to offer as both works of loose experimentation and compositional rigour.
Hate Meditations 
Leave a comment