Album Review: Sarcophagum - The Grand Arc of Madness
Reviewed by Daniel Phipps
It's been just over two years since Sarcophagum released the three track EP Conduits to the Underworld through Nuclear Winter records and the Australian band are following that release with a new collection of material this time a full length effort being released again through Nuclear Winter titled The Grand Arc of Madness.
Even before the music starts this release is more aesthetically pleasing to the eye as it is donned with full colour artwork, compared to the previous black and white. It really is a glorious and dark piece of artwork which given the style of the band musically sets a real expectation of what to expect.
That expectation is really matched with this full length. Where its predecessor had some really solid moments it was a release where you could find other bands doing the same thing on a much higher level and I feel that The Grand Arc of Madness has seen Sarcophagum expand on their sound and bring the level up. The dark and quite uneasy parts of the guitar work have really excelled and that helps maintain the rich and big sound that the riffs have created within the release. With a easy run length of 34 minutes the albums finale self titled track takes up almost half of that run time as it clocks in at just under the 15 minute mark, and is an absolutely crushing display of blackened death metal and finishes the record in a suitably epic fashion.
The Grand Arc of Madness really has hit all of the checkmarks when it comes to creation of blackened death metal. Crushing atmosphere, evil riffs and tight pounding drums topped off with dark and powerful vocals. Sarcophagum have taken their sound up to the next level and gone from a band sounding like x,y & z to a band creating their sound within the style they play.
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