One thing I have always found intriguing about death/doom and the adjacent genres, is the ability to personify the ever growing sense of dread one feels when facing a frightening situation. It’s an ability that many artists who pride themselves on creating lengthy and dense songs should be proud of, and Spectral Voice, hailing all the way from Denver, Colorado ought to be pleased with what they’ve given us on their sophomore release, Sparagmos.
For those unaware, the title of this album refers to an act of tearing a person apart limb from limb and mangling every inch of their physical being into oblivion. A slow and painful death for a victim, and it is certainly fitting for the slow and painfully brilliant work these guys have forged for us after seven years away from the studio.
And the best way I can describe this morbid masterpiece is a lost soul creeping through an endless maze of tunnels inhabited by the most horrific of beings and otherworldly dread, and the slow paced tempo changes make you feel like you’ve turned a corner and come face to face with another manifestation of doom. Guitars are forever crunching in the way only doom metal can do so, combined with the death metal growls and dense arrangement that makes each song feel like a weight on your shoulder that grows heavier by the minute.
What has made me adore the slowest of metal genres like funeral doom and death/doom related routes is how the extremely slow pacing can give one a glimpse into the horrors of a slow and painful suffering. Making that suffering something beautiful which will raise your inner psyche to a level of euphoria is certainly something Spectral Voice have achieved.
It should be noted that this is an album that requires a time commitment – and I mean a big one, with the shortest song clocking in at seven and a half minutes. Ideally, you’ll want to buy this on vinyl for the full blown experience and you should sit down to listen – ideally alone in a candlelit room.
Extreme metal is normally pictured as the fastest type of music achievable, but it is wonderful to see bands like Spectral Voice take it to the other end of the spectrum and show us how slow music can be equally extreme in every sense of the word.
(8/10 Demitri Levantis)
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