siLLy puPPy The Denver based bad boys who brought us the psychedelic death metal world of Blood Incantation had a few more tricks up their sleeves and proved they were extremely competent at producing some of the slickest and freakiest death doom metal as well and a year later in 2012 the trio of Paul Riedl (vocals, guitar), Morris Kolontyrsky (guitar) and Jeff Barrett (bass) started SPECTRAL VOICE and have been playing hopscotch with each band ever since finding massive popularity with ever step they take. Although a little hiccough in the form of the Blood Incantation ambient experiment called “Timewave Zero” may have intervened, the boyz are back with a brand spankin’ new slice of death doom metal!

It’s been five long years since Blood Incantation released its lauded “Hidden History of the Human Race” and lo and behold it’s SPECTRAL VOICE’s turn to have a day in the limelight which sees its sophomore album arise from the cryptic coffins in the form of SPARAGAMOS, a term that in Dionysian mythology of the ancient Greeks refers to the extremely displeasurable act of being completely dismembered alive. Oh the agony you say! Fun stuff in the world of death doom but what a nasty term to insinuate the sonic ripping of the soul that SPECTRAL VOICE has so elegantly mastered in its decade long existence. Time for round two!

Four tracks make up this crushing brush with brash surrealism secured with the slinking sensations of reverberating doom metal guitars augmented with the tortured soul vocals emerging from the underworld. Once again SPECTRAL VOICE showcases its competency in crafting not just mere tracks that slink on to swallow up time but rather provide the basis for a complete escapism into some of the most abysmal and decrepit quagmires of the soul. Mind you that it is virtually undetectable to any connection with Blood Incantation’s tech death antics, SPARAGAMOS stands proudly in a world of its own making, utterly as disconnected from its the greater metal ecosystem as are any limbs that were lost in its making.

Totally separated from the Blood Incantation world by the addition of percussionist extraordinaire Eli Wendler, this gruesome foursome delivers the perfect cauldron of top notch death doom with eerie and ominous atmospheres that perfectly suit the hypnotic procession of the guitar, bass and drum patterns that add just enough spice to the mix to keep the entire shebang from becoming stale. Unafraid to erupt into thundering death metal rampages, the jangly warbles of arpeggiated chords suddenly emulate the wretched horrorscapes in a parallel universe adjacent to the blackened technicalities of Deathspell Omega only the band never strays too far from its main objective of keeping the musical callithump in a clearly focused and directed hybridization of atmospheric funeral death doom.

The slow churning of the opening “Be Cadaver” slowly ratchets up the gloom and doom with cavernous tones and cosmic atmospheres before arpeggiated guitar chords slowly slink into your soul like a parasitic worm with no good intent. The music ratchets up the tension through posty cyclical loops that add ever increasing dynamics in just the right doses so the tension hypnotizes you into a state of sheer terror. Deathened doom metal cedes to heavier cadences that collaborate with churning atmospheres and thunderous metal instrumentation. Graced with the perfect claustrophobic production, SPARAGMOS may not quite be as unsavory as the actual meaning of the term, but for a wild ride into the world of funeral doom turned up a few notches, it doesn’t get much better than these masters ripping through your defenses and nestling in your soul like a parasitic scourge.

It’s always refreshing to hear a band that not only knows how to perform a desired style of metal but also knows how to breathe life into it and alchemize it into something totally above and beyond the sum of the parts. With ingenious passageways through turbulent corridors of repetitive chords and thunderous bass and drum bombast, SPECTRAL VOICE has mastered the ultimate juggling act of composition, dynamics, production and mood construction. The tones of the instrumentation bend and yield to the various whims when called for and obsequiously snap back to the status quo when required like a well disciplined militia. The tightrope may be thin but SPECTRAL VOICE has found that perfect balance between seemingly chaotic atmospheres colluding with doom metal traditionalism that offer one of the most outstanding examples of modern death doom releases of the 2020s. Wow, between Blood Incantation and this band, these guys are on fucking f-i-r-e !!!

666sharon666 The fusion of doom metal and death metal can result in a number of vastly different sounding albums all being branded under the same 'death-doom metal' banner. From more melodic and gothic stuff like the recent (and early) Paradise Lost outings to slowed to a snail's pace crossovers with the funeral doom metal style and even something like Exuvia by The Ruins of Beverast that throws in all kinds of unusual influences like tribal ambient. Then you get an album like Eroded Corridors of Unbeing, the 2017 debut full-length by US act Spectral Voice, which instead of feeling like a doom metal album with death metal influences like a lot of death-doom metal can be described as, is more like a true fusion of the two: in some ways it's a death-doom metal album, in others it's a doom-death metal album.

I say this because there's plenty of instances during the album where Spectral Voice's music is much more death metal based than it is in doom metal, especially during tracks like Lurking Gloom where they pick up the tempo and go beyond what is normally considered acceptable for doom metal, even the more heavy metal influenced so called 'traditional' style. Maybe that shouldn't be a surprise when most of the band's line-up also belongs to the death metal act Blood Incantation, so they're hardly greenhorns (Spectral Voice themselves have also previously released no less than five demos and two splits) in the genre.

Yes, more often the music on Eroded Corridors of Unbeing is slow to mid-paced, but it certainly equally has the sound of a death metal album in terms of riffing style. And it sounds like a particularly filthy death metal album at that. There's no modern squeaky clean polished production work been done here and the band show everything they can do offer perfectly without it. Through it all though the album builds an atmosphere of oppressive menace, which is in no way mitigated by the inclusion of melodic guitar lines and notes and ambient sound effects during the brief moments the album allows you to come up for air. I can't understand the vocals, but in this case I don't need to: they function perfectly as an extra instrument, adding an extra layer to the evil cacophony of guitars, bass and drums.

Eroded Corridors of Unbeing is a mid-length album, containing five songs. I find that some death-doom metal albums can end up seeming like they've been drawn out for too long, but there's no danger of that impression forming here. These five songs are packed to the brim with quality riffs, and though it sure doesn't sound pretty the unpolished production gives the album a certain kind of charm that has me instantly hooked in Spectral Voice's style. I really think this one is a special album. It's quickly become my new personal favourite doom and death metal album of the year. Play it loud and often.

adg211288 Boasting a line-up that includes 75% of the US death metal act Blood Incantation (who released their debut album Starspawn last year), Paul Riedl (guitars), Morris Kolontyrsky (guitars) and Jeff Barrett (bass), with a line-up completed by Eli Wendler (drums, vocals), comes Spectral Voice, an ominous and menacing new entry in the directory of death-doom metal. These guys have been around for five years now and already have a number of demo and split releases to their name. They used to be a five-piece with Casey Hogan (Clad in Darkness) as their vocalist, but Wendler took over the role in 2016 in time for Eroded Corridors of Unbeing (2017), the group's rather unsettling debut studio album.

Heavily channelling the death metal element for their music, with a small dash of black metal for good measure, Spectral Voice's Eroded Corridors of Unbeing creates a vibe that is undeniably all about doom metal. Even during the parts of the music that feature faster guitar riffs atypical for the doom genre, that are more like they're straight out of old school death metal, they manage to make sound absolutely sinister, filling their listeners with dread. It's a feeling shared by the more atmospheric and slow parts. The band's immense, powerful sound feels completely evil and rotten to its very core.

It's often the case with new bands, especially extreme metal bands, that the actual songwriting ends up being the weak link in a group even when they've hit on a winning sound and have good musicianship, because the individual songs don't make an impression. That's not the case with Eroded Corridors of Unbeing, which shows the guys in Spectral Voice to be very capable and creative songwriters. Often throwing out traditional song structure, each one of the album's five tracks feels jam packed with ideas, whether it be the 13:59 long Visions of Psychic Dismemberment that uses its long duration to move through multiple distinct sections or the instrumental Lurking Gloom where the band really rev up their speed to deliver some pummelling riff work. Their production work is far from polished, in fact it sounds pretty filthy, but nothing is lost in the murk. The guitar riffs stand out, as does the band's flair for haunting melodic notes that can regularly be heard behind the distortion, subtly adding atmosphere to the aggression in one wicked, unholy union. The growls from Eli Wendler are also worth taking note of, since he uses a whole range of styles. Nothing monotonous about his performance at all!

With Eroded Corridors of Unbeing Spectral Voice have a record where there's none of the usual pitfalls that extreme metal styles can fall into. Many bands, especially new ones, tend to make records where everything sounds exactly the same all the time, meaning that even if they are good musicians and have a good sound production their songs end up lacking identity. That's definitely not to the case with this one. Their music may sit in the dark and gloomy end of metal, but Spectral Voice are shining a bright light on the future of the extreme metal scene.