Life isn’t a party for every person alive in this realm. There is pain and suffering at every corner, be it physical or mental, and for some, taking on a new day becomes a chore that isn’t always a pleasure to experience. Relief then becomes sort of an abstract idea, something that might not be attainable at all until one sheds their human shell.
“Sparagmos,” the powerful second full-length from death/doom warriors Spectral Voice, examines that issue and levels with the painful realization that lack of existence might be the only way for one to be truly free. The title of the record is a Greek term that means physically being torn apart, and that ritualistic turn is what colors these barbaric four tracks. The band—vocalist/drummer E. Wendler, guitarists M. Kolontyrsky and P. Riedl, bassist J. Barrett—is made up of three quarters of Blood Incantation, and half of Black Curse, but what we get from this band is far and away what their other projects offer. This is deeply scarring, often cosmic torture, a span of creativity that sounds mentally warped but also is stimulating and devastating in a manner that leaves you morbidly satisfied.
“Be Cadaver” begins eerily and spacey, the doom stretching into deep, mysterious darkness, settling in just as the growls begin to bubble. The tone is mesmerizing as the guitars begin to agitate, ripping out and ushering in a punishing pace with warped cries and a darkened crunch. A haze envelopes and hovers, cold waters drip slowly, and everything disappears into a space chasm. “Red Feasts Condensed Into One” blasts in, churning away, howls marring before the tempo wrenches your guts. Guitars open as the pace explodes, gutting and destroying, unleashing fiery menace. Horns signal ominous tidings, the pressure mounts, and the playing batters harder, smothering as the noise rings in your ears. Doomy trudging adds bruising power, spiraling off and into the endless universe.
“Sinew Censer” drips cleanly, making your flesh crawl before everything detonates, the ground rumbles, and the growls smear the senses. The guitars begin to slur as the ambiance gets more hypnotic, the fog thickening amid the growls engorging. Psychosis spreads as everything collides, trudging with vicious force, the howls peeling flesh from bone. Closer “Death’s Knell Rings in Eternity” opens as a muddy assault, blackness seeping and confounding, the terror devastating and fronting a flattening pace. Growls tear through guts as a glacial pace grinds your face into the dirt, pummeling and slowly adding heat, echoed cries reverberating in your mind. The vocals turn corrosive, chilling playing spirals, and bells chime, signaling the end and melting into the horizon.
“Sparagmos” is another daring step for Spectral Lore into the finality of death and the ongoing torture one can feel about existence. Yes, it’s a brutal exercise, but it also is one that causes you to immerse yourself in the beyond, and the final mercy we experience removes us from existence. This is a ferocious, chilling chapter from a band that has reconfigured death metal and doom into their own image.
For more on the band, go here: https://spectralvoice.bandcamp.com/album/necrotic-demos
For more on the label, go here: https://www.darkdescentrecords.com/shop/?s=spectral+voice&post_type=product
To buy the album, go here: https://www.darkdescentrecords.com/shop/
Meat Mead Metal 