SUPPLICIUM — Resurrection of the Shadows (review)

SUPPLICIUM — Resurrection of the Shadows album cover

Album · 2008 · Melodic Death Metal

3/5 · 2024-08-30
siLLy puPPy

SUPPLICIUM is a blackened melodic death metal band from Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia and is virtually unknown outside of its homeland. It’s origins date back to as far back as 1995 and the band consists of Omar (vocals), Roger (bass), Freddy (guitar), Christian (guitar), Marco (keyboards, vocals), Gonzalo (drums), John (guitar and Tadashi (bass). All members have stuck together throughout the decades and the band is still officially active although it has only released a few demos and this sole album RESURRECTION OF THE SHADOWS in 2008.

While starting out as a death-doom metal band, its sound morphed into a more melodic At The Gates type of Swedish melo-death with blackened influences especially in the raspy vocals. This lone album features eight tracks at a playing time of 36 minutes and pretty much showcases a rather generic approach to the whole melo-death sound with rather predictable repetitive riffing and the standard melodic guitar solos that follow. The band features the expected twin guitar harmonic approach more prevalent of classic heavy metal bands like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest than old school death metal.

The tracks are a bit on the sweetened saccharin side of the equation and although i love certain bands in the melo-death camp, many just don’t work out so well and unfortunately SUPPLICIUM is one of them that is just a bit too underwhelming for my liking. It’s all a listenable experience as the musicians are all competent at their retrospective instruments and even the vocals are dynamically brash and deliver the goods however the songwriting itself is a bit on the weak side with a series of samey sounding tracks that rely on the same melodic riffing techniques and by the numbers melo-death accoutrements. There are also dueling vocal performances with different extreme styles. On the positive side the guitar tones are spot on and the band does deliver a thunderous roar that at least keeps things firmly in the death metal camp. There is also an atmospheric keyboard presence in the backdrop keeping it all a bit airy.

It’s not unthinkable that this band could emerge with something far superior to this effort if it has taken the last several years since this album’s release to craft some more interesting songwriting techniques but basically this is just a standard example of melo-death that doesn’t either offend or excite. It’s like a melo-death comfort food that simply fills the space while you’re attending to other tasks at hand. As an active listener though i don’t find this compelling enough to get excited about but in a far flung place like Santa Cruz, Bolivia this band probably has a loyal following as an exciting live act in a region with few options. A competent and well performed album that just doesn’t compete on the world’s stage but that’s not for lack of talent but rather a rather bland creative approach.