The Laws of Scourge

Sometimes you feel like taking a piece of work that is easy to hate and use it as a punching bag for pure entertainment, to let off some of the anger we all have in our day to day lives in order to let off steam on an easy target. And sometimes you feel like the opposite, and you pick up an album that you simply love to celebrate its existence and somehow be grateful for the fact that you have crossed paths with something that has given you so much joy. And this is the case with "The Laws of Scourge", an album that has recently very slowly slipped into my favourite albums. And it's funny because it's an album I've known for a long time and I've always liked it but it wasn't until recently that it really clicked with me. Maybe it's the fact of knowing better the context of the band and appreciating their evolution and musical maturity, that so strongly impregnates the compositions, have caused that the almost 42 minutes of this album feel like a pure musical orgasm every time I have the opportunity to listen to this work.

The Laws of Scourge swings between fast thrash songs with furious outbursts of pure unfiltered aggression and mid-tempo songs with much more emphasis on prominent and adventurous songwriting. From the first group we have examples like the eponymous The Laws of Scourge, The Black Vomit or the incredible Crush, Kill, Destroy, these are reminiscent of the band's earlier period, being more of a natural evolution but being perfectly adapted to the dynamics of the current album, with a more refined and death metal oriented production and are mainly oriented around one or two incredibly outstanding and memorable riffs being simple yet effective. The other style of songs is exemplified in songs like Piercings, Midnight Queen or Secrets of a Widow, these stand out for rotating between fast and slower rhythms and having characteristic sections, like the use of keyboard and acoustic guitars in the intro of the already mentioned Midnight Queen, or in the atmospheric middle section that includes a moment of bass brilliantness in Secrets of a Widow, being this one of the highlights of the album for how a moment like this is able to stand out in an album full of aggressiveness.

Because in this work, every element introduced works majestically well, the compositions, even the most simplistic ones, are risky and willing to tread uncharted territory, sometimes to the point of taking a path that one would think could not work. Take "Screeches from the Silence" for example, it's a short song but it fulfils almost all the elements that make this album stand out, the riffage is slow but engaging, there are at least three great riffs in the song, they take the liberty of anticipating the creation of the chorus riff, and although the vocals are growls there is room for gang shouts and a clean high pitched scream that are reminiscent of Wagner Lamounier's style in the early days of the band. And there's even time for one of the main riffs to be played on keyboards, all in less than 4 minutes, adding a lot more dynamism, depth and drama to a simple song.

In fact, drama seems to be one of the main elements of the album. It is a well known fact that this album was a transformation of the band from a mature point of view, therefore the compositions are more complex, Wagner Lamounier and company are no longer kids trying to make the most violent and obscene music possible, now they are really taking themselves seriously and feel they have something to say, both in their lyrics and in their music. To this day I still read people remembering the ridiculous grammatically incorrect phrases of Sarcofago's debut, and it's funny how things have changed so drastically here, far away are the satanic and sexual lyrics that only evoke a rebellious blasphemy of youth to anger and upset an ultra-religious society like the Brazilian one of that time. Now the lyrics tell stories, rather focused on the dark side of life, on the misfortunes and the victims of horrible acts. In this same way, the music also captures those emotions, the keyboards and acoustic guitars throughout the album are used to accentuate those dramatic moments, but at the same time the music is also hard and heavy with a heart piercing vocal performance from Wagner Lamounier to highlight each of the possible emotions expressed. I think that the song that best exemplifies this is the breathtaking Little Julie, in which you can see how each passage musically fits perfectly into what the story is reflecting, being also one of the peaks of the album in terms of musical display on a compositional, technical and creative level.

The Laws of Scourge may not be the album that makes Sarcofago be remembered with vehemence, it may not be the game changing album that I.N.R.I. was and it may not be consistent in its entirety because of the incorporation of the old track The Black Vomit. But it is undoubtedly the album that has best shown the quality of Sarcofago and more specifically of Wagner Lamounier as an artist, a careful, mature work with artistic pretensions that only adds up and never detracts. The Laws of Scourge was, is and will be in my eyes a masterpiece of old school death metal, and this is my tribute to this tremendous work.

Remember: Crush...Kill...Destroy!!!