“Spanish death metal maggots” indeed, hmm? Debut album too. An album of catchy, putrid, crusty death metal? Mmm, putrid crust on a death metal maggot pie; sounds tasty to me.

So.

A rather cool and atmospheric intro bodes well, something about the voice, and then with no intake of breath ‘Harbour Of Drifting Souls’ howls out to sea. This is basic, pounding stuff with cavernous vocals and a determined, very crusty style to the monomaniacal riff. A quite melodic, slightly surprising guitar break rises briefly but otherwise it’s no frills, drilling down Discharge gone death metal sounds. Second track ‘Ceremony Of Putrefaction’ takes that ploughed furrow and in essence simply ups the pace a little and throws some nice tempo changes here and there. ‘Sepulchral Fumes’…well it pretty much lets you know that if you don’t like the template, you might as well leave now.

‘Tomb Stone Thrower’ is probably the only track that disturbs the mid to fast paced onslaught with a crawling opening that builds into a real gallop and a weird little piano closing that actually works really well. Even the Necrophagia cover, ‘Blood Freak’, slots in seamlessly which, let’s be honest, shouldn’t be a massive surprise from the above descriptions anyway and it’s a good full bloodied cover to boot.

The biggest problem this debut has is it gets to be a bit…samey. Even For me. The tempo changes and little breaks really don’t add huge individual character which means ‘Tomb Stone Thrower’ is a big standout amongst a general grinding pit. This is even harder to say as I’m pretty much guessing this is exactly how they wanted it to sound.

The good thing is they do have a good, primitive crust death sound at their heart and a good take on vocals too. In addition the odd things like that piano closing work really well and show that they have ideas. But there’s little I would class as catchy here (and this is from someone who found Fetal Blood Eagle catchy).

I’d really like to see them see where they can take this. Basic foundations are fine, and no reason to lighten the sound at all. Just a little bit more variation, a layer of shade and pushing the sound could produce some great results.

It’s a good start.

(6/10 Gizmo)

https://www.facebook.com/sepulchraldeathmetal

https://soulsellerrecords.bandcamp.com/album/from-beyond-the-burial-mound