Satan in the Death Row

This Brazilian black metal band is certainly first wave in sound, but the execution comes from a modern mind. The base ingredients of their sound would have anyone salivating - Manilla Road, Celtic Frost, Sarcofago, Destruction, Rotting Christ, Bathory, Helstar, Morbid Angel, Samael, and even Dissection at moments.

They play with a bombast and refinement of musicianship that lets the disparate influences of early black metal practitioners link together in such a way it's almost as if it's telling a story of how the past would eventually become the present. These songs are not too complex, mostly built around a main riff that serves as a branching and return point for its detours, but are executed well enough that their union of assorted schools of death, black, doom, traditional, thrash, and so on remains its coherency rather than falling into "avant-garde" stylistic ADD.

Backing up the highly varied riffing is bass work that is prominent yet prefers to underscore, harmonizing when appropriate in a manner similar to classic Iron Maiden. The drum programming, thankfully sounding rather punchy and more organic than most, plays less so for technicality and more for crushing heaviness, with crashing rolls and pounding militaristic rhythms, helping to lend the album a feel of an unstoppable army marching forth. Vocals are a little low in the mix, being a lurking rasp that narrates the onslaught from afar.

This is the first wave-styled black metal album we've all been waiting for, primal and molten yet free of the amateurism of most of their contemporaries.

The South American continent has long been one of the big players in extreme metal, and bands like Sarcófago and Sepultura are household names in metal today. Picking up the mantle in 2008 is B.A.V., formerly of Necrocult and Unholy Massacre, when he created Despot, a militantly crude black metal project through which he released 3 demos until laying the finishing touches upon his biggest opus yet, Satan in the Death Row.

Right off the bat Despot and the associated album Satan in the Death Row gives off a somewhat schizophrenic vibe with the colourful and vibrant cover art leading the thoughts more toward hipster-indie stuff rather than the savage black metal tunes that inhabit the disc. The intro track, too, supports the notion that Satan in the Death Row is an effort quite dissimilar to the traditional approach many bands take, its electronic ambience sounding more akin to certain European pioneers. But at the very core of it all is the raw bulk of black metal coarseness, a more obvious product of Despot's national ancestry. And like many of the Despot's South American predecessors the music itself - the riffing in particular - has an inherent tinge of thrash metal, turning songs like Purified by Fire into relentless Sodom-esque tunes.

The weirdness and ambiguity of Satan in the Death Row doesn't end with the perculiar choice of artwork or the ambient intro. The beginning of the album's eponymous track also feels a bit out of place along with the same track's oddly melodic solo and the epic aftermath of same, and the closing track of the album neatly ends the experience in much the same way as it began. Fact of the matter is that all these elements serve to subtract from the often cheesy sense of self-worth and arrogance inherent to some black metal acts. The commanding beats of the programmed drums to which B.A.V. plays his militaristic riffs and rasps his belligerent lyrics grants Despot's music a militant and vigorous sound, and the marching habit of his compositions could well have devolved into mediocrity.

Not knowing Despot's previous demo work it's hard to say for sure, but Satan in the Death Row feels like an ambitious endeavor. The riffs aren't too shabby but often feel lost in a hostile environment of ferocious drum machines where the strings don't quite come into their own. Classical elements and computerized choires lend a certain amount of melody to the mix, which in turn once in a while makes it harder to discern individual elements. Not always does the compositions follow the tide of battle, but it can generally be said that the 9 tracks on Despot's debut album present a different take on modern, South American black metal.

Originally posted on http://gouls-crypt.blogspot.com/

The three-minute, dark ambient intro to Despot's Satan in the Death Row, with all the requisite scary synths, backmasked whispers, and machine percussion, gives you a great opportunity to take a gander at the album's rather unique cover art. First of all, the band already has a pretty unusual logo; rather than the standard elaborate, gothic-looking symmetrical logo favored by much of the black metal scene, you get an unusually legible logo that looks like a 70's version of something futuristic, à la Priest, or signage from something in Batman: The Animated Series. This is situated below a drawing of a rabid-looking mounted animal head, in turn mounted on a warmly colored surface. It's got this sort of strange, unsettling psychedelia to it that's rather subtle, which fits the music on this album like a glove.

Once the first song proper, "Matriarch" gets going, you might be under the impression that this is actually just a straightforward black metal album with an unusual choice of cover art, but then the haunting, quavering lead guitar comes in for the bridge, which then bleeds into a herky-jerky follow-up riff with a nicely thumping bass line. This song, like the cover art, does a fantastic job of setting the mood for the rest of the album: skullfucking, ripping blackened thrashing with nods to the giants of the first and second waves, all colored with a certain beguiling weirdness.

The lead guitar is consistently fucking bizarre. It's almost like sole member B.A.V. is trying to tread similar territory to Kerry King: sweeping, alien sounds to create an unsettling atmosphere rather than a focus on technicality or melody. However, the path taken to get there is totally different, with none of the whammy bar abuse and instead a more psych-freak style with origins that are wholly unfamiliar to the norms of metal lead guitar playing. Not to say that there aren't some more technical bits of shreddy fare, especially in the songs that adhere a little more closely to black metal's roots, but it's definitely the unorthodox leads that stand out in my mind, if only because they work so unexpectedly well. Check out the solo about 3/4 through the title track as another example. Is that even a guitar or some sort of mutant synth?

Of course, this sort of stuff wouldn't be much on its own if it weren't for a solid foundation in riffery, which the album thankfully has. Despot's approach to riffing heavily favors somewhat thrashy, pummeling powerchords, often structured with simple chord progressions that end in zanier bits of technicality. Sometimes the thrashing really takes over ("Purified by Fire") while other tracks contain just hints of it, with the riffing favoring a more Nordic flavor ("Forbidden"). All of the riffs are supported with a nice, clean and clearly audible bass. Sometimes it's a bit more adventurous, with little fills and accents, but even when it's just following the riff it stands out a bit since the crunchy guitar tone leaves plenty of room for the bass to add definition to the riffs. There's also some really subtle use of keys that are sometimes buried in the mix, serving to fatten up the tone. Some guitar lines even get doubled by a faint acoustic guitar that adds even more layers to the sound. This all makes for a fairly dense mix, but the clear production and tight playing keep everything audible to the discerning ear.

The most disappointing aspect of the album are the unfortunately, and obviously, programmed drums. The actual programming itself is pretty expertly done, with thrash beats and double bass dominating and blasts as support during appropriate moments. There's plenty of attention paid to neat fills and creative, organic use of accents and cymbal theatrics. However, the samples used are ultra sterile, fake-sounding clicky-hell, where you get that unfortunate effect of the snare being just barely different from the bass drums, and the cymbals rendered into abstract sibilants. Normally I'd say something like, "a real drummer would've been a huge boost" but here I think I would be completely OK with the same programming driving better-sounding drum samples.

Fortunately, my gripes about the drum sound are largely offset by other factors, the vocals being one of them. B.A.V. has a competently-performed mid-ranged rasp which he utilizes for much of the album, but he augments the vocal performance with tasteful use of lower growls and some truly excellent deep, echoey cleans. These are used not just as subtle backing vocals but as the lead vocal technique for certain passages. B.A.V.'s not just a talented vocalist, but a guy with a really good ear for layering and arranging different vocal techniques in a way that makes wonderful use of his diverse abilities but that also feels totally natural. Changes in style come purely with shifts in the mood of the music the vocals narrate.

While Satan in the Death Row is a really fun listen, I can't help but feel like it would be infinitely harder-hitting if the riffing style had as much of its own identity as so much of the rest of the music does. B.A.V. is a talented musician, songwriter and arranger, but nowhere on this album did I ever feel like the meat of the material, i.e. the guitar riffs, had quite as much character as the lead guitar, the vocal performance, or the generally experimental vibe that permeates the the songs from the beginning of the album to the end. I think it'd also be greatly improved with a less irritating drum sound, as I mentioned, but also with a more organic-sounding production in general. Still a very neat album and refreshing in its mixture of destructive thrashing, alien weirdness and notable professionalism.

Despot is a one-man Brazilian thrashy black metal project of B.A.V. (or perhaps blackish thrash project) featuring rather novel aesthetics for a band of that genre. Though the cover art of “Satan in the Death Row” (or the album title) can hardly be considered very indicative of the music contained within, it should dispel any doubts as to whether this is a fairly unique work of art. This album can definitely be lauded for originality and passion. The songs are intricately crafted and layered with carefully written melody and even counterpoint. The music is not highly experimenting in the sense of being avant-gardist, but it clearly shuns typical approaches to songwriting, even where the riffing is rooted in traditional aesthetics. There are no cheap, tried-and-true resolutions to be found, or anything indicative of artistic listlessness. This approach of genuine, uncompromising artistic pursuit is naturally the only way of creating a masterpiece, but its results can also be divisive among listeners. When it hits home, a classic is born. When it doesn’t, at least the result is something legimately imaginative and real, even if it fall short in resonating with the listener in ways that the artist intended.

The title and cover art of this album imply certain simplicity of aesthetic, or at least appreciation of tradition. However, the music is modern, complex and quite restless. The first thing to be noted is the interplay of the guitar riffs and the programmed drums. At times, the drumming consists less of parts easily definable as beats, and more something as a complex rhythmical backbone for the riffing. The drums are completely a slave to the guitar riffs: where there’s a pause in the riffing, the drums follow, and where the guitars blast frenzied, dark riffing, the drums blast along. In ways, this is both beneficial and hurtful to the music. In later Immolation albums, the drum beats are written entirely by the songwriter and primary guitarist of the band, Vigna. The effect is excellent: the music is entirely driven by Vigna’s riffs, and therefore those riffs are augmented by every other instrument in the best ways possible. The downside is the lack of individuality of the different instruments. There’s a highly calculated feel in it, which gives Immolation a very awe-inspiring, imposing atmosphere. Despot’s music is driven not only by riffs, but also atmosphere as evoked by those riffs and the layers placed thereupon. The production is darker, and the music is sometimes more menacing in a sinister way, and sometimes quite playful in a manner reminiscent of 80s thrash metal. The frantic, well audible bass parts are complex, fast and wrought with intricate, rolling patterns. The songs are crafted in a most unorthodox way, and the amount of riffs seems quite exceptional. Getting into the atmosphere requires a certain mindset, and the complexities and the quality of this album might be lost to the listener at first try, especially since the last track (discounting the outro) leaves a somewhat sour taste in mouth. I wholeheartedly recommend a few listens before passing judgment, as the music is at best brimming with excellent musical ideas: they simply require complete concentration from the listener to be wholly appreciated. The pace of the music (in terms of how it progresses) is so blinding that the finesse can be difficult to recognise, and certain less tasteful musical elements can make it even harder to acknowledge.

B.A.V.’s repertoire of riffs is adequately diverse, and the sheer amount of variations he has crafted of certain archetype riffs is astonishing, as well as laudably developed so as to genuinely give the music the variety it needs. The anger and spite in riffs of songs like “Auto-da-Fé” is quite inspiring, and at times, that style is effortlessly combined with melodic, even sorrowful styles to an excellent result. Many of the riffs seem to draw from Destruction and other more spiteful and extreme thrash bands of the 80s, which is especially apparent in the catchy main riff of “Purified by Fire”. There’s a mad energy to the vast majority of the riffing, which gives Despot unique charm. Certainly, B.A.V. never neglected to write atmospheric, somewhat mellower parts to balance out the sheer speed where necessary. The album is certainly full of material, brimming to the top with variety, and the music meanders to such degrees that it’s incredible how well each song, and in fact the entire album, maintains its cohesion. The atmosphere is in constant change through the album’s progression. By the middle of the album, as for example in the title track, more dramatic and melodic territories are explored. Later on, the album takes a turn for less serious, less sinister moods. The quality of songwriting clearly peaks early on, and begins to wind down as the album progresses.

Although the album’s character and quality becomes more apparent with listening, ultimately, the faults are the same ones that are apparent on early listens. The production is somewhat mellow for the style’s requirements. The guitars sound fairly soft, and the trebly drum sounds only seem to have power during intense double-kick barrages, whereas the thin snare, barely discernible from the bass drum, and the hissing cymbals fall considerably short. The music could have more power with either a veritably massive sound scheme, with thick, heavy guitars and more encompassing drum sounds, or completely raw and abrasive black metal sound. Another problem is the hecticness of the music and its pace. Though some songs like “Forbidden” and “Le Roi Nu” balance excellently between that mad, thrashing assault mode and calmer and more sinister passages, much of the music centers heavily on the intense. This is hardly a fault in itself, but some of the riffs and chord progressions, combined with the exceedingly busy rhythm section, lend and outright comical quality to the music, somewhat similarly as in Vorum’s material. As with Vorum, being able to get past that requires considerable degree of immersion in the atmosphere of the music. Again similar to Vorum, Despot evokes atmosphere quite laudably, which makes this less serious of a problem. The worst offender is “Egregious”, the penultimate song, which also features some less interesting riffing in comparison to the rest of the album. Ultimately, the largest problem with these cases seems to be the drum programming. Songs like “Egregious” could’ve been made considerably more impressive by a live drummer and a more individual style in the drumming performance. Albeit overlong, it’s a fairly enjoyable piece by virtue of a few excellent riffs in the middle parts. Overall, despite having notable faults, “Satan in the Death Row” is an extremely interesting and mostly very enjoyable listening experience. It’s certainly not typical for black metal or any genre, and shows a great example of how black, death and thrash metal can be expanded, muted and combined. If every song was as great “Matriarch” and “Auto-da-Fé”, this album would be close to outright brilliant.

The cover of Satan in the Death Row definitely gives off the vibe of a more traditional heavy metal record, but this is in fact an all-out, one man black metal express replete with synthesizer orchestration, lots of tempo variation and no shortage of atmosphere. Despot is a Brazilian project involving one B.A.V., who had previously spent years in other Belo Horizonte underground acts like Necrocult and Unholy Massacre before turning his attention strictly to Despot, and this is the first proper full-length experience which is being offered through Bandcamp. He covers all instruments and programming, and if nothing else I came away from the album pretty impressed by the guy's sinister energy and also his willingness to balance off subtle atmospherics with brutal intensity...

A great example of this is the track "Auto-da-Fé" which is a face-tearing black/death metal exhibition that seems like a bastard blackened spawn of Morbid Angel and faster Sarcofago, only he tosses in a lot of eccentricities like chanting and whispers against the filthy onslaught of proto-black/thrash riffs and mechanized sounding kick drums that will leave compound fractures on your skull. Vocals are a harsh, nihilistic roar with a bit of resonant echo, though he can easily veer into rasps or guttural growls for added effect. Subtle sweeps of symphonic keys are executed in the background to create a fulfilling level of drama. B.A.V. is also a rock solid bassist who makes the instrument well known with lots of grooving fills, and as a rhythm guitarist he is even better, keeping the riffs busy, varied and even semi-clinical or technical as he churns up a batch of thrash, death and black metal techniques with ease, cross-pollinating the picking styles so that they remain provocative and engaging even when they're not specifically catchy. The one caveat is that I felt the leads here were sloppy in execution...sort of arbitrary, indulgent, frivolous, uninteresting and not very well put together or even effective as fits of disjointed chaos.

Some are likely going to have issues with the production on the record, in particular the drum sound, but I actually found them bombastic and pummeling enough to mesh in with the soaring synths and choirs, and grimy lead vocals, and it even gave a hint of an industrial/black impression circa Thorns. I do feel like the rhythm guitars would have been better served with a more potent and robust mix, that might have helped balanced out better against the programming, but in the end, for a one man project, you can hear just about everything and a little bit of rawness or imbalance does help to give Satan in the Death Row a refreshing, hellish visage that takes you back to the 90s when black metal recordings were all slightly 'imperfect' in legendary ways. Most importantly, though, B.A.V.'s riffing style is rather peculiar, with a lot of early 90s death/thrash flair that you don't normally experience in the context of black metal. Morbid Angel, maybe, but some of the patterns even reminded me of bands like old Atheist or early Sadist which I never would expect on a black metal production, though this is probably just my imagination.

At any rate, Despot is a compelling project, worth your support in at least checking out, because while there are clear parallels to 90s black metal delivered through the atmospheric synths, that give the record that sense of nocturnal majesty you might recall from a record like In the Nightside Eclipse, Born of the Flickering or Enthrone Darkness Triumphant, the supporting structures of the rhythm guitar are generally even more interesting and give this album a semi-original sound that was compelling to become lost in. The mix can be tightened up, with fatter guitars and maybe a better tone for the bass and guitars, but this guy is no joke, and anything from the concentrated majesty of "Le Roi Nu" to the scathing sympho-black-thrash of "Egregious" just reeks of fiery creation and actual effort being applied. The lyrics are also quite awesome, minimalistic fits of infernal and haunting poetry. I dug this. Check it out on Bandcamp, and let the man know what you think.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com