This Norwegian bands logo takes some deciphering as it appears that scant information is known about their members though they have released a debut titled “Mausoleum Tapestry” in 2015 which I’ve not heard. For 2018 the band has released a stripped back album of raw, unfettered extreme metal that takes in the traits of death metal but also takes a swing at thrash but also proto black metal too from the mid-1980s if you can remember back then or were alive then.

Kicking off is “Corporeal Vessels” and what hits you is the organic aura to the album, the sound is genuinely raw, especially the drums which feel live, every cymbal hit sounds like its right next to your ears. The straight up nastiness of this album is ingrained in the riffs which are bone cleaving, linked into that are the vocals which are atypical to what you’d expect, being cleaner than I expected, shouted but with an enunciation that is black thrash like with an air of torture about them too. The change in tempo is immense too, switching to a double bass laden section that allows an eerie guitar hook to filter in as the track again changes to another riff and bearing in mind this is only the first song.

All of the songs are five minutes plus as “Towards An Earthly Rapture” announces itself with drum fill section before adopting a steady almost metronomic beat to get that head swinging as the song sequentially intensifies in power though the song has a strangely eerie guitar hook tom it before the riff break which is total thrash before hurtling the speed skywards. Mournful, solemn and desolate “Corrupting The Cosmos” begins with a slow permeating riff initially that is left isolated momentarily with the vocals joining the misery too and it cannot be overstated how integral they are to the songs atmosphere as the track steadily and unearthly increases in speed to the point of blasting.

“Abyssal Horror” has a riff that feel very familiar but I couldn’t place it so maybe it wasn’t at all, as the song stamps hard on the speed and initially there is a slight crustiness to the track as it develops into a full frontal assault. The album ends with the epic “Haunting The Spheres”, a track that delves into the catacombs of musty fungoid deathliness. The tracks severing butchery is remorseless possessing an old school approach similar to the likes of Autopsy and fans of that act will enjoy this album but also compatriots Execration are decent reference point as the Norwegian death metal scene shows no sign of abating in teeming out acts of this nature as we now have another quality act festering in the gutter ready to corrupt your soul.

(8/10 Martin Harris)

https://www.facebook.com/sepulcherband

https://edgedcircleproductions.bandcamp.com/album/panoptic-horror