Review Summary: Badass old school death metal, wrapped around a war-themed lyrical concept.
No more than ten years had passed since the end of the war in former Yugoslavia, when Bosnian Herzegovinian film director Danis Tanovic begun realizing what would turn out to be one of the most esteemed anti-war motion pictures. As its title implies,
No Man’s Land narrates the whereabouts of three soldiers – two from Bosnia Herzegovina and one from Serbia – who are trapped in between the respective warring parties. The film was a success thanks to Tanovic’s script, a highly effective crossover between war drama and black humour. Some 25 years after the war outbreak in former Yugoslavia, and as our world insists on converging to its obZen (sic), Sepiroth from Holland have dressed their awesome old school death metal with a unified lyrical concept relevant to those troubled times of old in the Balkan peninsula.
In the absence of full lyrics and in remembrance of live footages filmed by war correspondents during combats and diplomatic negotiations, the track titles are fairly descriptive regarding the concept that binds them. The violence implied therein is perfectly matched by the album’s musical ferocity. Sepiroth have drawn inspiration from both the US and Swedish early ‘90s death metal, and in that light, it’s difficult to say for certain whether the former school has taken over the latter and vice versa. The rhythm section of Damien Kerpentier and Julian Schaap is blast beating most of the time, yet it does not get one-dimensional over time, due to the abrupt occurrence of time signature shifts and double-bass-mid-paced passages. To that end, the acclaimed early ‘90s death metal bands from both banks of the Atlantic that are “heard” here, consist of the usual suspects, still,
Uninvolved is anything but a shameless rip-off.
The deliberations of the rhythm section are on par with Chris Both’s guitars and Ben de Graff’s vocals. The latter are no less than an equal partner to the musical content, bringing in mind the respective vocalists from Asphyx and Bolt Thrower. As for the rhythm guitars, they riff hard whatever style they’re adopting. Oddly enough, the guitar leads are sparse (“Abandon”, “Breadline Massacre”, “Letter from the Unknown”), probably for the best, as no noteworthy skills are showcased. With its turn, the sound makes for a really smooth and swift listening session, also due to the album’s duration (~30 minutes). The rhythm section sounds organic (a huge plus), the same holds for the vocals and the guitars, whereas nothing sounds on top of everything else. Overall, and accounting for the unusual but original choice of the lyrical concept used in
Uninvolved, Sepiroth's sophomore effort should get all the recognition it deserves.
