Album Review: Sepiroth - Condemned to Suffer
Reviewed by Richard Oliver
The Netherlands seems to be a country that is very adept at producing some of the gnarliest and nastiest sounding death metal bands with some of the finest bands in the genre coming from the country such as Asphyx, Pestilence, Sinister, Gorefest and Thanatos amongst others. Whilst the aforementioned bands are old school death metal legends there is now of course a younger generation of bands who worship at the altar of old school death metal nastiness and pay tribute to the bands of yesteryear by keeping the old school death metal sound alive and well. One such band is Sepiroth who have been producing bone shattering death metal since 2003 and continue to cause injury and annihilation with their third album Condemned To Suffer.
The first thing to notice about Condemned To Suffer is that it sounds absolutely massive. The mixing and mastering job by Mendel Bij De Leij is brilliant and ensures these slabs of death metal brutality sound as crushing as possible. At its core this is no frills death metal which leans to a more brutal sound inspired by bands such as Cannibal Corpse and Vomitory but there is also plenty of that killer old school groove. Songs such as Six Times A Charm and River Of Perdition manage to mix those wonderfully filth laden groovy riffs with barrages of blast-beats and double kick whilst songs such as Selective Apocalypse, Destined Between The Eyes and the title track are full on slabs of sheer fucking aggression that if played loud enough could be used as an effective form of demolition work. There are a few moments of calm dotted here and there such as the atmospheric mid section in Six Times A Charm and the mellow interlude of Pseudoscience but these moments are few and far between.
Sepiroth have a killer death metal album with Condemned To Suffer. Brutally old school it won’t win any awards for originality but Sepiroth takes all the prime ingredients of death metal and mix them together to serve a steaming hot plate of death metal deliciousness. If you want brutal and violent music then Sepiroth have just the dish to serve you.
