The most anticipated album within the death metal & death doom genre is finally upon us!
Spectral Voice has returned with a follow-up to the earth-shattering debut album “Eroded Corridors of Unbeing”.
The band’s sophomore album “Sparagmos” might be seven years in the waiting but it might be the group’s most punishing & ethereal material to date.
Spawned in Denver, Colorado in 2012, Spectral Voice is a different entity to most. They are mixing a wide range of subgenres like death metal, doom, black, & dark ambient. This has allowed the band with only one full length & a slew of splits/demos to become one the most talked about & mimicked bands since their formation.
The group’s newest album “Sparagmos” sees them take their sound & expand it even more. Comprising of only four tracks the band has created a running time of over forty-five minutes, with its longest track almost hitting the thirteen-minute mark. Now that’s not to say the band are being long-winded, if anything the use of the running time has allowed the band to focus on the songwriting of the album & create the band’s most punitive yet beautiful songs to date.
The album opener “Be Cadaver” starts with the most haunting clean guitar that reverberates in your eardrums. Slowly building anticipation as feedback & distortion start to rumble. It is drawing you in closer & closer before the band discharges into a wall of sound.
As its intensity in all doom-laden style at its perfect & natural peeking moment, Drummer & Vocalist E. Wendler lets free a languishing scream.
Conjuring visions of torment & pain his performance is just another gorgeous but also grotesque instrument the band uses perfectly.
The following track “Red Feasts Condensed Into One” opens with a barrage of power. Unbridled fury & aggression before the band takes a moment to pull things from the blasting to introduce a hugely hypnotic riff & drumming section. Guitarists M. Kolontyrsky & P. Riedl’s simple but effective chaotic riffing and magnificent clean guitar picking have a yin-yang effect but work so well together.
Not many bands can manage such a clean & elegant switching from heavy to expansive, dream-like sections naturally but Spectral Voice does so effortlessly.
As we hit “Sinew Censer” at the midpoint of the album it feels like we have been on an epic journey. As this track begins there is a fantastic melding of sublime, well-formed echoing clean guitar picking mixed with buzzsaw-like guitars which doesn’t feel jarring or off-putting. They feel perfectly at home together. As the track builds we reach some of the most death-doom parts of the album. Bone-shattering drums & earthquake bass guitar from J. Barrett rattle the listener as the guitar makes you feel overwhelming sadness & panic (in the best way I promise).
What helps in the culmination of the band’s superb songwriting is the perfectly recorded, mixed, and mastered by Arthur Rizk (Redwood Studio) sounds he has captured. Now Rizk has over the past few years become the benchmark for amazing producers & engineers. And this album is a showcase of just how raw his talent is. Being able to capture all the elements on “Sparagmos” would be no small feat but he can do so while keeping every element feeling like its own raw, primal sound but also still effortlessly reign them all together to create a cohesive & impactful album.
“Sparagmos” really does feel like an album Spectral Voice has spent so much time meticulously crafting. It’s an album that blends all the most devastating aspects of death doom with the lush & angelic sounds of dark ambient music. This is an album that will haunt your soul & will change the face of modern death metal by showing that experimentation pays off in the most beautifully grotesque ways.
Review: Guy Willams
Sparagmos is out via Dark Descent Records on 9th February 2024
Tracklisting:
1. Be Cadaver
2. Red Feasts Condensed Into One
3. Sinew Censer
4. Death’s Knell Rings in Eternity
SPECTRAL VOICE is:
M. Kolontyrsky – Guitar
P. Riedl – Guitar
J. Barrett – Bass
E. Wendler – Drums/Vocals
