“Lamentation of Immolated Souls” is the first full-length album of Chilean band Sepulcrum; the overall impression left by this accomplished debut work is one of a surprisingly controlled posture; each song seems purposeful in its structured attack without giving up on any of the vicious aggression that one expects from the genre. Dense riffing gives way to solos that delve both on the visceral directness of the fretboard attacks of the American bands and the more elaborate melodies of the Swedish and Finnish styles of death metal, granting the music an aura of mystery that comes to forefront in particular moments, like in the “interlude” that makes up the fourth track or the lead guitar in the fifth, and is hinted at throughout the album’s more exploratory tendencies. These flourishes, along with more atmospheric touches, find themselves intermingled with the more straightforward brutality that predominates in its relentless stomp.
The riffs vary between savage blast-beat-backed romps and more intricate constructions embedding varying tempos and changes, sometimes interlocked with interesting interventions from the bass; all of these parts flow organically through the song’s precise and intuitive structuring, aiming to both overwhelm with their sheer intensity and take the listener on a journey of odd, angular sights as in the likes of Carnage. A clear production allots every instrument its fair share of space, slightly subduing the drums in favour of the density of the guitars which, as in the classic albums of the genre, take the center stage, including in the determination of the rhythm.
Both in the songwriting and the admirably tight delivery, a general sense of assuredness pervades the album, perhaps unexpected given the band’s slight output before this outing (their only release until now was an EP three years ago). Like in death metal’s most successful ventures, Sepulcrum deliver music that is simultaneously complex and straightforward in its intimations of eldritch menace and might.
