Saturday 2 March 2013

INFERNAL SEA - CALL OF THE AUGUR (Cd Review)

01.A Prayer For Cleansing
02.Malevolence Of Our Lord
03.Sermon Of The Augur
04.Catastrophic Reprisals
05.Condemned To Psychosis
06.The Gathering
07.Ritual Incantation

Dean Lettice (Vocals)
Geoff Taha (Bass)
Jonathan Egmore (Guitar)
James Burke (Drums)




The Infernal Sea formed in East Anglia in early 2010 from the ashes of UK acts such as The Argent Dawn,Raise the Dead and Middenhelm. They combine black metal melodies with old school death metal brutality to create some uncompromising metal music.
Having often been compared to bands such as Belphegor, At the Gates, Behemoth and Thorns
(to name a few), the band clearly wear their influences on their sleeves.

Having already shared the stage with bands such as Napalm Death, 1349, Annal Nathrakh, Vreid, Abgott, Martyr Defiled and Romeo Must Die the band are rapidly gaining a dedicated
fan base worldwide.
They released thier debut album ‘Call of the Augur‘ to an overwhelming response and the album is already on its second print run.
The future looks bright for the band with a handful of upcoming tours in the UK and Europe. The Infernal Sea are
currently writing/demoing material for the next release with the intentions to record the follow up album in late 2013 and have just released a limited edition cassette tape of older demos.

First 2 songs come in with a Darkthrone/Mayhem vibe, fast drums, heavy riffing and gutteral vocals, in fact so old school black metal that im surprised the band look so  normal and are not dressed in leather, studs and corpse paint!

'Sermon Of The Augur' is an atmospheric acoustic interlude with some good sampling in the background and leads perfectly into the brutality that is 'Catastrophic Reprisals'.

More atmospheric weirdness with 'The Gathering' seems to be 3 minutes of very low growling  with some drums, but it leads into the albums finest track 'Ritual Incantation' coming in at 14 minutes, this one is stunning!
Starts off in a fairly traditional way with triggered bass drums at high speed over a simple riff with that screaming vocal, but then the song takes an intresting turn as it slows down.
Mixing a downbeat almost spoken backing vocal attempting to create some incantation from evil monks over some nice acoustic guitar, which later gives way to sound effects created on a synthersizer that sounds like water, very reminiscent of late 60's occult rock band "Jacula".

All in all a very good debut album, staying away from the symphonic style of Black Metal created by Dimmu and Cradle and sticking to a more (Im)Pure influence.

Rating 9/10

For Fans Of : Darkthrone, Mayhem, Abgott, Hellhammer, Blut Aus Nord


FACEBOOK : http://www.facebook.com/theinfernalsea?fref=ts

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