SPECTRAL VOICE — Sparagmos (review)

Album · 2024 · Death-Doom Metal

4.5/5 · 2024-02-14
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 !!!