Mourninghoul

It took a little while, but I've really got into Sarcasm at last. It's actually hard for me to believe that more than 2 years separate Stellar Stream Obscured from Mourninghoul, since these releases seem very much cut from the same cloth and continue to convince me that Sarcasm stand apart from their Swedish brethren like Necrophobic, Unanimated, and Dissection, who notionally all play a kind of melodic black/death metal. The difference may not seem that stark for some, since the aggression, pace, and flourishes of technicality still recommend fans of one to check out the others, but Sarcasm sound distinctive to me, even when listening to individual riffs or song sections.

A certain specific rhythmic tendency provides one of the key markers for the quintet, and 'As Northern Gates Open' has that inimitable quality right from the first seconds. The icy scale in the opening riff, then the percussive shuffle, followed by the staccato delivery of Heval Bozarslan; all contribute their own mark to the Sarcasm sound, a sonority both imperious and chaotic. For that opening number, fans of any kind of extreme metal will be extremely happy, though 'As Northern Gates Open' also hints at how other elements get mixed into the sound to mediate the attack. A calm yet mysterious clean outro ices the cake for this briefest song, showing some intriguing eastern scales as well as the first dose of piano on the album. Said piano comes back strongly in the long intro to 'No Solace from Above', which revels in its role as one of the band's slow songs by lasting almost 9 minutes and crawling ahead in despondent doom death style for much of its length. Violins can be heard on this one at breakdown moments, while the marching beat played on the snare replicates the similar blasting rhythm that erupts during the faster tracks. I mention these 2 songs to show that Mourninghoul very much varies over its 42 minutes.

These features have belonged to Sarcasm for many years now and tend to recur on each album, with the extended song structures and additional instruments very similar to what they prepared 2 years before. As such, we get a sumptuous experience that calls forth rampant heaviness at moments, as well as the weird alien tendencies that Bozarslan seems always to convey through his voice and lyrics. Reflect on titles like 'Lifelike Sleep' and 'Absence of Reality' to understand why I would also compare this to technical thrashers like Toxik and Coroner at times. However, alongside the jagged rhythms and slightly mechanical feel to certain parts, the guitarists bust out a couple of low-tuned riffs to point more overtly towards death metal than previously. The closer has a few moments like this along with a very nice thrash section in the middle, while 'A Lucid Dream in the Paradigm Stream' goes the whole hog with big smooshing chords at the outset and then a fat downtuned riff right after. Given that the overall "texture" of Sarcasm songs tends to be sharp, that comfy broadness comes as a surprise, though doesn't seem utterly incongruous. The operatic female vocals in the second half may raise a few more eyebrows, but yet again it's an example of Sarcasm taking a song somewhere you don't really expect without compromising the overall feel of the piece.

I hesitate to say that Mourninghoul can be viewed as a masterpiece, partly because Sarcasm had already basically done this before and also because I'm not cut to shreds by that many of the tracks here, as I was a few times on Stellar Stream Obscured. The difference in quality surely can be measured in degrees, however, and not levels. Anyone looking for extreme metal that has its own sense of identity should feel encouraged to check this out. Another annoying proof that Hammerheart Records continue to be infuriating bastards signing all the right bands.