### Sanctification: Misanthropic salvation

#### 03/01/12 || BamaHammer

Thanks to the GD forums, I’ve discovered some really high quality death metal bands over the past few years. Sanctification was actually a band I really had no idea even existed until I saw them in their forum. Their 2009 release “Black reign” received some pretty high praise, so I procured it along with “Misanthropic salvation”.

I actually heard this album before “Black reign,” and I really didn’t know what to expect when I saw the cover. It looks as if the artist was revisiting a close-up of Amon Amarth’s “Golden hall”, and the logo just reeks of power metal cheese. However, it’s just pure awesomely relentless, brutal death metal as only the Swedish can produce.

The first thing that struck me about the album on first listen was, of course, the annoyingly shoddy production. The root of the problem is the Kataklysmically bad drum sound that’s just plain ugly and way too loud. The tone sounds like there are more triggers than a Roy Rogers cosplay convention (what a stupid metaphor that no one will get), and it actually begins to ruin the overall quality of the album much like Kataklysm’s “Serenity in fire.”

Additionally, the bass is reminiscent of Immolation’s “Shadows in the light” in that it comes comes across as nothing more than an incessant low end rumble with no clarity or character whatsoever. Those two instruments overpowering the guitars and vocals in the mix makes this somewhat of a difficult listen on the first attempt.

Luckily, none of it really matters. Sanctification is far too good of a band to allow any production snafus to bring the overall quality of this album down. Make no mistake, these guys can create some world class death metal tunes that feature everything you could want. They have groove, technicality, and brutality in spades.

In spite of the production, the songwriting begins to reveal its true quality the more times you listen through the album, which doesn’t take long (It clocks in at just a shade over 28 minutes, and that includes a 57-second intro track that I think I’ve skipped every time I’ve played the album). After a while, it’s almost as if your ear begins to grow accustomed to the mix, and you start to pick out what proves to be some pretty ace riffing, courtesy of Tomas Elofsson.

There’s really not a weak moment to speak of on the album. Every track is well-written and catchy, and you can definitely start to see that this band was beginning to move toward the upper echelon of Europe’s quality death metal bands. With “Black reign,” I wouldn’t hesitate to say that they truly arrived at that level.

The overall score for this one would be a little higher with a better production, but these guys really impress me nonetheless.

- Information
- Released: 2003
- Label: Remission
- Website: Sanctification MySpace
- Band
- Mathias Mohlin: vocals
- Tomas Elofsson: guitars
- Jürgen Bylander: bass
- Nils Fjellström: drums

- 01. Unleashing The Demons (intro)
- 02. Hunted
- 03. Summoning The Ancient Ones
- 04. Slay Christianity
- 05. New World Order
- 06. Into Our Torment We Dwell
- 07. Consumed By Life
- 08. Misanthropic Salvation
- 09. Feed Upon Christian Souls
- 10. Supreme Pain
- 11. Necrolord
- 12. Disembowelment