Rex Shachath - Sepulchral Torment

Hostile Media 2012

 

1.Intro 2.Sepulchral Torment 3.Follow The Bastard Prophet

4.Blind From Birth 5.Seven Serpents 6.Statues Of Death

 

Thirty seconds of creepy intro before ‘Sepulchral Torment’ blasts open, gnarly old school riffing powering forth and utterly pummelling. Reminiscent of the early days indeed, when death metal really was death metal. Morbid, horrible, disgusting music played with absolute conviction and for the love of the music…this is definitely not one for the trendy ‘core’ scenesters. Fans of an older age will definitely reminisce at this, the music sounding very much in a similar vein to many of the European bands that helped forge that early death metal sound. ‘Follow The Bastard Prophet’ follows on in similar fashion, dirty and ugly death metal but with a real catchiness and an actual ‘song structure’. It’s possible to hear the verses and choruses because this style of old school death metal never suffocates under a barrage of blast beats and over technical riffing. It's back to the roots and it’s a fucking joy to listen to! And similarly ‘Blind From Birth’ is yet another homage to the forefathers of European death metal, very early Necrophobic springs to mind here, the guitars a torrent of melodic tremolo picked death metal mastery. The production is very to the point, very natural and organic sounding. For all the dirtiness of the music on offer, each instrument is balanced well in the mix and produced very similarly to bands such as Cemetary, Séance and Necrophobic. So if any reference points were needed, or you’re trying to guess what the band sound similar to, dust off the said bands early material and you’ll not be far off the mark.

‘Seven Serpents’ sees the pace being upped slightly, blast beats and faster guitar work used, but mixed with the slower, dirty and melodic sections which adds variety to the track. Closing this debut e.p. is ‘Statues Of Death’, another track which incorporates all of the bands influences and tempos, as ever a very heavy old school Swedish influence on display. A slower, heavier and doomier pace being opted for here with creepy, reverb heavy guitar solos being incorporated for added old school effect, slightly ‘Rick Rozz’ in their delivery. It’s been quite a long time since I’ve heard a band playing this style of death metal and this is a strange turn of phrase (for morbid, creepy old school death metal), but it’s a real breath of fresh (read putrid) air. As mentioned earlier, fans of death metal that were ‘there’ when the underground scene was being formed will lap this up, it certainly brings a smile to the face as all those memories come flooding back. Any fans (whatever age) of that style of music from that era will love this; it oozes appeal. Dirty, nasty sounding death metal, played brilliantly with a killer production that again, leads your memories to the early 90’s hay-day. Rex Shachath have produced an absolutely outstanding e.p. that offers up five tracks of everything that old school death metal should be, i.e. nasty, no holds barred, to the point and with a production that goes straight for the throat – all of which these tracks are/have. This comes highly recommended. Gore not core!

 

8.5 Out of 10