Sarcoptes – Plague Hymns (Two Bittersweet Tracks of Blackened Gothic Death Metal)
At first I thought there was something wrong with this promo. Two tracks of “death metal”, WTF? That’s practically single length, barely an EP in my books. But okay it’s an EP I guess. So here’s the thing about EPs. You have to prove yourself fast and hard or it’s all over. You hear me? And we got Sarcoptes up in here with one demo and one full-length to their name and after like four years of silence they bust out with another EP? Dangerous stuff there, dangerous. You only have two tracks to prove yourselves to me with this here Plague Hymns. Can you do it?
Holy shit they did it. I didn’t check the track length on Plague Hymns at first, nor did I scope the supposed genre. At two songs I figured it was likely some funeral doom, but then I realized it all repeated at some point. And that’s when I knew this duet had done the deed; when upon listening over and over again I thought it was always something new. Sarcoptes are poorly listed as death metal on Metallum. Yeah, there’s a bit of that, but these two mix in far more than the usual and even, shocking, effective, symphonic keyboards. Also much appreciated in this mere two tracks are the blistering riff assaults and layered vocals, which form a clearly unified vision of sound that’s so tight you’ll never notice it’s only two tracks. Death metal, black metal, thrash metal, Gothic metal, they’re a bit of all the dark in several genres and have amassed more meaning in less time than most.
Sarcoptes – Plague Hymns
Transcending Obscurity Records
Cover Art: Zé Burnay
4.6 / 5
