Sepulchral – Beneath the Shroud (Romantic Spanish Death Metal)
Man, that Spanish metal has got me loving. Just search for “Spain” in the box on the right there and you’ll find some of the juiciest releases in any metal from the past few years that I covered. I have no idea what’s happening over there but the amount of creativity, with what feels an ethnic flair and great sense of creative themes, is rather astounding. Sepulchral I’ve heard before, but I can’t remember where, I can’t remember if I passed on earlier releases for review, and I can’t remember if I cared. Doesn’t matter, anyway, because we’re in the here-and-now with their latest full-length, Beneath the Shroud. Is it old school? They say so, but I say no. Is it new school? No, and we’d probably all agree on that. Let’s call this for what it is because this is Spanish school, or particularly one I would say could best be described as Romantic (in the academic sense). As in 19th-century supernatural primacy.
I particularly enjoy how Sepulchral jumps into a groove and let’s it stick throughout Beneath the Shroud. They don’t choke their sound with the cavernous murk lots of recent death metal bands have attempted (poorly), yet they also avoid the “brutality” that became dated by the late 1990s. Look around a bit and you’ll see “critics” talking about the “murky” riffs and “buzzing” guitars (whatever that shit means), but I do agree this is mid-tempo, clearly. But, beyond this, we have here an album focused on clarity, with a special momentum that allows the forbidding atmosphere to permeate and properly infect. With this we find a curious, and allow me to say 19th-century, medieval-revival decay that dominates this album, down to its cover art, feeling like a tomb made of bones. With its references to shroud-covered specters, bloody phlegm, poisonous winds, and ruins, we’ve got here not old school, but crypt-born, Romantic Spanish death! Get it right!
Written by Stanley, Devourer of Souls
Sepulchral – Beneath the Shroud
Soulseller Records
Cover Art: Luciana Nedelea (Luciana Nedelea Artworks)
4.4 / 5
