Night

Without question, we all know I love black metal. There is nothing standing between me and black metal. That’s just a fact about me. I’m not picky about my black metal. Old Bathory? Sure! The latest tracks from Abbath? I’m in! I met a fellow black metal fan in a metal group, and he recommended me his own band, Sardonic Wrath. He told he his work was black metal with avant-garde influences. Now, I haven’t listened to a lot of avant-garde (I know a little bit about it), but as soon as I started listening to this band, I was won. Sadistic Blasphemer has some serious creative skills. And he does all of this on his own. He does all the instruments and vocals. So naturally I was impressed at his ability to do all this himself. I’m even more impressed with the music itself.

I listened to the album Night for my review. This album was released in November, so it’s a good representation of his more recent work. This is definitely a black metal album. This album somewhat reminds me of Behemoth’s old work, back before they moved to a blackened death metal sound. Honestly that’s what it reminds me the most of. Overall, I liked the guitar sound, personally. It was just distorted enough and had the right level of static in it, but not so much that it sounded like it was recorded on an amp that was dying (some people like that sound, but I personally like the sound a little more deliberate). Although I generally don’t like static in the guitar sound as much as I like thick, crazy distortion (like Immortal do), I liked the way the static went with the overall eerie atmosphere of the music. The first track had some interesting sound effects and instruments (I especially liked the pipe organ effects) in it and had an eerie atmosphere that I really enjoyed. The vocals are strong and dark, and they are kind of halfway between a growl and a scream, which I like. The drumming is even and keeps the atmosphere dark. One thing I do have to say about the third track is that I think it could have used a little more variation in guitar sound. There wasn’t a lot of variation in the tone and I would have liked to see more. There was a little more variation in the other tracks, but I would have liked to see a little more variation in the tone. That’s really all the negative I have to say for the album. It’s well-done, well thought out, and has a unique, original sound. He also had a cover of Immortal’s “Pure Holocaust”, which was done quite differently than the original. I am an Abbath fan and we all know I swear by Abbath’s vocals, but this was done well, although differently.

Overall, my final statement is this: If Sadistic Blasphemer continues to advance his work and add new, unique touches to his work, his albums will only continue to get better and improve, and his work will hopefully become more well known. He does do good work, and hopefully that work will pay off.

*this review is originally from my tumblr and my YouTube channel*