UMUR
"Sermon of Mockery" is the debut full-length studio album by US death metal act Pyrexia. The album was released through Drowned Productions in 1993.
The music on the album is brutal and technically well played death metal. When listening to the album it´s obvious that Pyrexia are very influenced by fellow New York death metal act Suffocation. There are many similarities between the music by the two acts, like the ultra brutal and completely unintelligible growling vocals, the multiple tempo changes in the tracks and the high technical level of playing. In addition to that former (and present) Suffocation guitarist Guy Marchais is a part of the Pyrexia lineup on "Sermon of Mockery". I´m not sure I´ll go as far as to call Pyrexia a Suffocation clone but it´s close.
Personally I think the quality of the music is slightly lower than most of the material released by Suffocation, so while "Sermon of Mockery" is a good quality death metal release in it´s own right, it doesn´t exactly reach the hights of the best albums in the brutal and technical part of the genre. The sound production could´ve been more powerful, the tracks could´ve contained more hooks and while the musicianship is generally strong I think the vocals are monotone and one-dimensional. Still a 3.5 star (70%) rating is warranted.