SULPHUR AEON – SEVEN CROWNS & SEVEN SEALS

(Andy Synn catches up with NCS favourites Sulphur Aeon following the release of their fourth album)

I doubt there’ll be many people willing to argue against the statement that Sulphur Aeon have long-since proven themselves to be one of the best bands in Death Metal – hell, in Metal in general – operating today.

After making an impressive impact with their 2012 debut, Swallowed by the Ocean’s Tide, they then blew practically everyone away with the inhuman intensity of 2015’s Gateway to the Antisphere, only to then turn around and knock people’s socks off all over again with the more epic and melodic strains of The Scythe of Cosmic Chaos in 2018.

So to say that the band have set themselves a very high bar would be an understatement, and I want to make it clear that when I tell you that Seven Crowns & Seven Seals isn’t quite the quantum leap that …Scythe… was from Gateway… (or Gateway… was from Swallowed…) that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It simply means that Sulphur Aeon are finally settling into their own strange and sinister skin.

That doesn’t mean, however, that Seven Crowns… doesn’t further evolve the band’s sound, it’s simply that their decision to further explore and expand upon the more melodic and even, dare I say it, progressive, side of their identity – with multiple moments giving off a distinctly post-Pink Floyd-ian vibe – feels more like an organic extension, rather than an outright occult transformation.

And while the band may have chosen to sacrifice a dash of their earlier heaviness in order to make room for their increasingly epic and atmospheric inclinations – the doom-laden “Usurper of the Earth and Sea” in particular is a veritable masterclass of brooding menace and bleak melody, interspersed with eruptions of eye-opening acceleration – they’re still more than capable of almost-literally blasting your face off when they want to.

Perhaps most striking of all, however, is the fact that don’t necessarily feel the need to do so as often this time around, while still frequently hitting many of the same unholy highs as their previous records (“Hammer from the Howling Void” and the outstanding title-track, for example, are easily equal to the band’s very best, although I’d argue that the latter would have made for a better opener than the somewhat superfluous “Sombre Tidings”, which really feels like it was added just to make up the numbers, if I’m being honest), which is a testament to the group’s increasing confidence in their increasingly complex and compelling songwriting skills if anything.

And if the whole doesn’t quite exceed the sum of its parts this time around, that shouldn’t (and doesn’t) undercut the blackened brilliance of the individual tracks themselves – from the undeniable hooks of “The Yearning Abyss Devours Us” to the irresistible core refrain of “Beneath the Ziqqurats” – each of which, when taken on their own, simply reaffirms Sulphur Aeon as one of the best, and brightest, stars in the Death Metal sphere today.