A REFRESHING TAKE ON DEATH METAL
Over the past few years death metal has witnessed rabid
insurgence. While most have fulfilled the needs of the desperate old school
death metal fans by taking elements of the overlords of the death metal genre
and rehashed them in an innovative way, some have at this junction of time
decided to push the boundaries of this genre. Bands like Necrovation infused
elements of rock in death metal without disastrous results, Karanrium infused
elements of ritual ambient into its music, Antediluvian and Mitochondrion took chaotic
brutality to its extremes and Dead Congregation crushing atmosphere would have
made forefathers of the genre proud. Sacriphyx too are one of those bands who
instead of sticking to a tried and tested formula have attempted to push the
genres of death metal.
Sacriphyx are a duo from Australia who has been around for a
while. Having formed back in 2007 they have released a demo, a few splits and a
compilation. Now, finally in 2013 the band has released their debut album
entitled ‘The Western Front’ in association with record label Nuclear War
Now! who have worked with respected
death metal bands like Dead Congregation, Anatomia and more recently
Wrathprayer. Sacriphyx are at their crux a death metal band, but as stated
earlier they are not a band that plays traditional death metal. Their
idiosyncratic form of death metal focuses a substantially on mid paced riffs
and creating an atmosphere which was the defining trait of the early Hellenic
black metal scene a la Rotting Christ, Zemial and Varathron , while at the same
time bearing a semblance of traditional heavy metal.
The concept of Sacriphyx is about Australians at war. Now
war themes and metal have had a long and lasting history, but Sacriphyx’s take
on war and metal is different one. While most bands focus and the glory, epic
battles and violent aggression of war, this band looks at war from points which
are often ignored. The band looks at the labyrinthine dynamics of war at an
emotional level and captures the feeling of despair, dogged determination,
forlornness, frustration, honor, valor and pride within their music and has the
uncanny ability to deliver these emotions upon the listener with an extremely
powerful and well thought of sonic assault that lasts 38 minutes and stretches
over 8 tracks.
As compared to the previous output by the band ‘The Western
Front’ has ingrained within itself, elements of Greek black metal far more than the band has ever done before as
is apparent on tracks like ‘Fatal Fromelles’ and ‘Wells Of Beersheeba’. Apart
from this the incorporation of long, flowing melodic solos on almost each track
add an emotive aesthetic to the album and has contributed highly to the sound and
stirring imagery that the band aimed to fabricate with its unique perspective.
While the riff progressions do at times seem
to be influenced by a certain Arghoslent, Sacriphyx has taken the idea
incorporated by Arghoslent and transformed it into a more varied, effective and
successful output and in the process may have created a fountain of influences
for other bands to sip from. For those who have been following this band or have
heard their previous output you will know that the band has this uncanny knack
of creating very well constructed lengthy songs and on this is apparent on this
release as well where the 2 lengthiest tracks, ‘Fatal Fromelles’ and ‘Without a
Trace’ are indeed the 2 best tracks here. While the latter is slower in tempo
it succeeds in creating an atmosphere, because, after all the slower tracks do
create more of an atmosphere in comparison to the ultra high speed ones. Almost
a ballad in nature, ’Without a Trace’ may be my favorite track on the record
with its death metal growls, black metal riffing and heavy metal soloing,
aspects the band strives to stand for. While the solos deserve special mention
the band has the ability to create highly catchy riffs that are simple, but
effective in nature. Riffs like those on ‘Buried behind the lines’ and ‘Food
for the Front’ are some of the best the band have come up with. The second half
of the album is more up-tempo in sound and thus more traditional death metal in
nature with the track ‘The Crawling Horror’ sounding like something out of the
manual of later Bolt Thrower. However much you praise the bands guitar work or
militaristic drums or atmosphere (which isn't a surprise considering the band members have been part of great Australian doom acts like Murkrat and Misery's Omen) and performance, when you get to the core of the matter, it
is the bands’ superior song writing skills that enable the band the jump from a
merciless death metal onslaught to a melodic and emotive section with such seamless
agility because of which Sacriphyx have thrust upon the extreme metal
fraternity a very well paced release which flows with effortless fluidity.
What ‘The Western Front is, is not just a collection of war
themed and impassioned songs. This means much more to the band. It is a history
lesson of the wars Australia has had to fight that the Sacriphyx wishes to
narrate to its listeners through its output as can be seen in the intro self
titled track that has sounds of gunfire that acts as a precursor of what is to
follow or the track ‘Damn Passchendaele Ridge’ which is an acoustic track and
what seems to be an audio log of a soldier who is frustrated out of his senses.
To my knowledge there are currently no bands that are playing in the territory
this band currently is and honestly, I am surprised that they haven’t gotten
more attention than they have considering bands like Arghoslent did and so did
Deathevokation with its take on melodic mid paced death metal. Come what may,
keep this album in mind. 2 months into this year, this release is my favorite debut
by a death metal band in 2013 and is certainly top 10, if not top 5 stuff.
SCORE - 88/100
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