By:
Daniel Jackson
Album Type: EP
Date Released: 15/01/2016
Label: Iron Bonehead Productions
The formula Sacrocurse use is well-worn and time-tested, which is
also to say familiar and less than innovative, but they also manage to produce
a personality within their songs that sets them apart from hundreds of other bands
working in a similar sound; this band is absolutely fucking lethal and when I
look at my favorite EPs for 2016, I can virtually guarantee you that
‘Destroying Chapels’ will be on that list.
‘Destroying Chapels’ LP//DD track listing:
1.
Total Devastation
2.
Sacrocurse Temple
3.
Destroying Chapels
4.
Total Destruction (Bathory Cover)
Sacrocurse is:
ZK
| Guitar, Vocals
SW
| Bass
LZ
| Drums
The Review:
Truth
be told, Sacrocurse’s 2014 debut album ‘Unholier Masters’ slipped under my
radar, something I now regret immensely, because this band is absolutely
fucking lethal. ‘Destroying Chapels’
is everything I want out of an orthodox death metal album. It sounds
devastating, there’s a fair amount of atmosphere, and riffs you think about
long after you’ve last heard them. The formula Sacrocurse
use is well-worn and time-tested, which is also to say familiar and less than
innovative, but they also manage to produce a personality within their songs
that sets them apart from hundreds of other bands working in a similar sound.
‘Destroying
Chapels’ is criminally short, falling shy of the fifteen
minute mark, but its brief duration is absolutely brimming with top notch
bestial death metal. When I say it’s familiar, anybody who is well-acquainted
with Canadian legends Blasphemy and similar
bands should have a decent idea of what to expect here, though they’re by no
means a clone band. Sacrocurse mix things
up quite a bit more, at least in terms of the mood the music conveys, with the
title track being the best example. The title track, at under three minutes,
covers a lot of ground, with the opening thirty seconds being focused on
building ominous atmosphere over driving drums, before exploding into blasting
and chaos, before returning back to the previous, more controlled tempo.
The
only real issue I have with ‘Destroying
Chapels’ is that the recording quality for their cover of “Total Destruction” from Bathory’s all-time classic “The Return” is somewhat weaker than the rest of the EP, losing
some of the heft from the production on the original songs. Still, looking at
the cover as an isolated song, the band does a really nice job of taking the
song and finding a way to make it work within their established sound, even if
the thinner sound of it is the first thing you’re likely to pick up on.
Even
accounting for the inconsistency in production from the first three songs and
the Bathory cover, Sacrocurse have
left a lasting impact with ‘Destroying
Chapels’. If you have an interest in this style at all, I’d consider this
release an absolute necessity when it comes out in January. The performances
are too strong and the songwriting is so dead on, that it simply will not be
denied. When I look at my favorite EPs for 2016, I can virtually guarantee you
that ‘Destroying Chapels’ will be on
that list.
Band info: Facebook
