Review Summary: A half-hour journey through the dense, technical, maniacal abyss that is death metal; the question is whether or not you’re up for the ride.
When it comes to technical death metal and its brief history, it’s safe to say that a bulk of the genre’s best material has come from the United States. Most notably,
Suffocation relentlessly tore up ear-drums in New York while the more progressive
Cynic,
Atheist, and
Death melted faces down in Florida. Further up north, Canada birthed behemoths such as
Cryptopsy and
Gorguts, each leaving a lasting impression on the genre as a whole. There are a few wildcards of course.
Anata hails from Sweden, presenting ferocious riffage to northern Europeans along with the Norwegian blackened-death metal band
Extol. These countries are by no means foreign to metal, though, which brings me to my point: one country that seldom comes to mind when thinking about technical metal is Italy. However, the five-piece Italy-based
Septycal Gorge seem dead set on changing that.
Scourge of the Formless Breed sounds like it was written in a scummy Long Island basement in the ‘90s. Opening track ‘Living Torment of the Sleeping God’ immediately draws comparisons to Suffocation, revolving around fast-paced guitar wizardry and ubiquitous blast beats. What makes this track, and
Scourge as a whole, such a breath of fresh air to the genre is the fact that the production is tastefully raw and muddy. Septycal Gorge thankfully hasn’t become victim to shiny guitar leads and over-polished mastering jobs. The riffs are crunchy, the drums are ruthless, and the bass, although it’s seldom heard, lays down the low-end foundation for the rest of the band to trample on. Mariano Somá gives an admirable, albeit monotonous, vocal performance; but on a tech death album you really can’t ask for anything more than rough, powerful guttural lows, of which Somá provides in spades. As a band, it’s apparent that Septycal Gorge has no shortage of talent or musical ability.
While the majority of
Scourge consists of rigorous blast beat-laden brutal riffage, Septycal Gorge tease listeners by throwing in traces of atmospheric doom in a couple tracks, namely in ‘Deeds of Eternity’ and closer ‘Awakening of the Seven Serpents’. The former opens with a motif that incites dread and despair, and continues in a slow, chugging fashion while the drum’s double-bass spices up the chugs with underlying repeated triplets. The track concludes in the same gloomy tone with which it began – a genuine characteristic of good songwriting, a quality pervasive in the album itself. ‘Awakening of the Seven Serpents’ starts as a ruthless affair, much like the majority of
Scourge, but as the song progresses, the mood becomes darker and darker until it finally fades out with rapid double-bass under a beautifully morose riff, leaving listeners yearning for more.
At a mere 33 minutes, Septycal Gorge demands your full attention throughout the entirety of
Scourge of the Formless Breed. It’s not an album for casual metal listeners – there are no clean, melodic refrains to be found here. Septycal Gorge constructed a half-hour journey through the dense, technical, maniacal abyss that is death metal; the question is whether or not you’re up for the ride.
Recommended Tracks:
➢ Living Torment of the Sleeping God
➢ No Spawn No Reign (Sons of Enoch Pt. 1)
➢ Anabasis/Paralysis
➢ Deeds of Eternity
➢ Awakening of the Seven Spirits
