Boiled to Death

I don’t remember the last time I heard a band playing that obscure way like Shroud of the Heretic but I’m sure it was somewhere in the 90’s; because of the art cover design I expected something underground and eerie and I was not wrong on that, the black and white cover where black predominates just prepared me to this band release and suffer its consequences. As always I’m accustomed to say as first description something that is highlighting and I have to express it either positive or negative; this time the production is not good and that echoed vocals are a kind of tedious thing, there was a rustic recording for this EP too.

The music is full of an overwhelmingly heavy death metal and I immediately thought about Suffocation’s Human Waste EP even though is not the same genre it sounds similar at least on that heavy sound, other of their notable influences is Autopsy. I just listened the complete album and is full of a raw and primitive style, this don’t sound like something recorded lately, better said this sounds like a 90’s release. The low tuned rough guitars are closer to those old school doom metal bands, don’t expect any black metal influences because this is totally into death doom metal without keyboards. Other important clue about the recording is that this is not very clean; it is noisy at times but without losing the underground feeling. Believe me I’m still looking for a suitable musical identity for this band style because I just found that they are not much original but weird, this is more into rawness and heaviness instead of brutality and nice melodies.

Getting more into technical aspects I can say the riffs are equally executed all the time in terms of tones although on rhythm changes they are better when they go from mid tempo to fast. The doom metal element has an important presence too on this band style, maybe they based a big part of their music on doom effect mixing it with death metal, this was a good result in general and of course is the main property offered if they wanted to transmit a real death metal feeling from the past.

After listening this several times I could not help being distracted for the echo on the entire recording and that was something following me all the time but I can’t deny the good potential of this band mainly on those blasting parts where the riffs caught me in a special way, in a way of true death metal with rawness specially where the long riffs are played. Drums are not muted at all, so I wanted to comment about drums at the end because I wonder how a drum player can be so effective and at the same time having a slow technique almost all the time and also so stay so heavy, is that possible?

I can’t be a very demanding person, this is not a full length but a hell of an EP and even so the five tracks are excellent and much attached to the old school death metal with a very underground taste. It has in my opinion more value considering this is a three piece band. I liked all the songs but there’s one you must check out, the title track: Boiled to Death. Shroud of the Heretic is closer to the realm of death metal where weird and dark bands lead, they are in the front.