SPECTRAL VOICE: “SPARAGMOS”

(We present the following review by Todd Manning of the sophomore album by Colorado-based Spectral Voice)

Spectral Voice is composed of three-quarters of the members of Blood Incantation and is equally as formidable a death metal unit.

But if Blood Incantation have their vision firmly fixed on the stars above, Spectral Voice lurks in the subterranean shadows.

If their 2017 debut Eroded Corridors of Unbeing didn’t place them at the pinnacle of the Death-Doom genre, their latest, Sparagmos, should do the trick.

Due out on February 9th courtesy of Dark Descent Records, it is certainly a shoo-in for year-end lists.

While many of their cavernous comrades choose between the almighty riff or crushing ambience, Spectral Voice find a way to provide both in equal measure.

“Be Cadaver” starts with a haunting, clean guitar riff, a faint broadcast from the not-so-distant end times, but when the same figure is played with distortion it becomes a torrential rain of stone and shrapnel. Both the clean and distorted sections get their time to shine before the band begin to combine the two and their horrifying vision becomes complete.

The effect is only reinforced when a new riff is introduced and the song goes from cosmic crawl to paint-peeling blast. “Be Cadaver” continues to morph from fast, slow, and mid-paced, but when the guitar goes clean again and a clean vocal line joins the death growl, we see the true compositional mastery of Spectral Voice.

“Red Feasts Condensed Into One” feels like a new chapter in a book rather than a new song. Beginning with another blistering blast beat, they soon return to another monolithic and discordant doom riff. This entire song sounds like it’s being played from within a cyclopean city in a Lovecraft story. The effect is utterly haunting.

Perhaps most intriguing is the break in the middle of the song where odd percussion, a trumpet, and drones create a tense, ritualistic atmosphere. It paints the doom riffs that follow in the same light due to their proximity. The whole song will send shivers down the spine.

“Sinew Censer” is about as evil a song title as they come, and I’ve been into death metal since the early ’90s. The music does the title justice, more clean guitar mixing with nastier undertones, blast beats, and funeral doom coming in equal measure.

Some of the sections are so slow they threaten to dissolve into total nothingness, but this only builds the tension…and the anticipation. A guitar melody emerges and a funeral procession begins its slow march to the unknown. Eventually, the track climaxes with a brutal mid-paced riff that punishes as effectively but in the same vein as Incantation’s classic Onward to Golgotha.

“Death’s Knell Rings In Eternity” proves the perfect capstone to this epic album. The opening death metal crawl is the kind of riff that could be endlessly repeated without losing its impact.

From there the composition nods to its influences but also transcends them. Disembowelment, Incantation, Thergothon, and so many others figure into Spectral Voice’s sound. Albums absorbed and digested, turned into something new and even more harrowing.

It may not be fair that the guys who make up the mind-blowing Blood Incantation get to have another band that is equally awe-inspiring. But it is what it is.

We can hate all we want but Spectral Voice are just so fucking good, and Sparagmos will surely appear in many year-end lists come the end of 2024. I know I will not forget it.

https://darkdescentrecords.bandcamp.com/album/sparagmos
https://www.darkdescentrecords.com/shop/?s=sparagmos&post_type=product
https://ddmsuo.eu/?s=sparagmos&post_type=product
https://www.facebook.com/Necroticdoom/