### Sophicide: Perdition of the sublime

#### 13/07/13 || Pr0nogo

BURN MUSLIMS… OR SOMETHING.

Sophicide is a three-man German outfit specializing in the art of technical death metal, and their debut full-length garnered quite a bit of attention when it released in August of 2012. Why the fuck am I reviewing it now? Well, for one, it’s awesome. For another, I meant to put it on the runners-up section of my best of 2012 list, and I have to make amends now by giving it the review it damn well deserves. These fuckers deserve your attention, and “Perdition of the Sublime“ really is one of the top 10 or so records of 2012. The band itself also has a fucking awesome logo. Look at it. Now read the rest of the review.

Now, I did say these guys were technical. How technical, you may ask? Think a cross between Fleshgod Apocalypse’s guitar playing and maybe throw in some of Opeth’s drumming. The vocals, however, are a bit different. They go between three tones, one of them being the most common low-pitched death growl that anyone who has listened to any death metal before knows. It gets the job done, but it’s nothing special – not that I’m asking for special, mind you. I’m asking for music that sounds good, and this shit certainly does. The other tones alternate between a high-pitched scream more reminiscent of blackened death acts like Behemoth and a middle-pitched bark that’s nearly indistinguishable from the common growl I mentioned earlier. Mechanics aside, the vocals do a spectacular job of directing the energy and the emotion behind the music, adding meaning to every syllable uttered. The power behind the vocals is what sets them apart from much of Sophicide’s contemporaries, and one of the many reasons I found “Perdition of the Sublime“ to be such a fantastic record.

What’s that? You need more proof? Well, I prefer skeptics to retards, so let’s have at it: “Perdition of the Sublime“ has some of the most memorable guitar riffs out of any album I’ve heard from 2012, the obvious exceptions notwithstanding (”TCRA“, anyone?). The best song to showcase Sophicide’s fantastic songwriting skills is probably “Blood for Honour”, the sixth song on the record. Somewhere around halfway through that song, I got lost in a sea of guitar, listening as the serene instruments bleated like sixty-nine flocks of sheep in heat. It was fantastic, and it was also way less effective at putting me to sleep than counting the stinky farm animals. You technical junkies will be right at home while listening to this record, as there are plenty of moments where the strings are being exposed to foreplay that would make the virgin Mary cum at the mere sight of it. These guys don’t fuck around: they go up and down the length of the wood, shifting their fingers ever so slightly, yet producing quite the miraculous and mesmerizing sound with the results of such changes in posture. The guitar tones themselves are crushingly heavy when they need to be – which is often – and eerily melodic when they’re slinging those solos out like a Frenchie chucks muffins at a gay rights parade. In other words, Sophicide has a virtuoso in their back pocket.

Now here’s where things get funky. Normally, I save my review of the drums for last, transitioning into my final words about the album (unless there’s something special that warrants a fifth paragraph). I have to mix shit up today, though, because we have some assfuckery from the band themselves here. They say that some gentleman by the name of Ingo Kolb who mans the drum kit, but they also say that the founding member of the band did all the work for “Perdition”. That man’s name is Adam Laszlo, who began Sophicide as a one-man project in 2009. In an even more confusing turn of events, the Metal Archives page for this album lists some fucker named Sebastian Bracht as the guitar player, while Adam is the credited vocalist, and nobody did any fucking drumwork at all! What the fucking hell, dudes?

So now that I’ve thoroughly explained the fact that we have three conflicting sets of information, none of which I can really use in good conscious, I’ll just talk about the drums as if there were a credited drummer. The drum tracks that are present on “Perdition of the Sublime“ are the single most phoned-in things about the album, and they’re still rock-solid. Nothing about the drums seemed to be particularly noteworthy except for two things: speed, and execution. The control required to pull off the drumming that we hear on this album is in keeping with the stereotypical idea of technical death metal being all about speed, so of course I have to credit whoever the fuck did these drum tracks for being able to pull it off in that manner. I dig blast beats, I dig fast bass kicks, and I dig a bit of variety, so as long as you hit one of the other parts of the kit at some point every half-a-minute I’ll be a happy man. Execution, though, is where things are a tad less generic, in that the drums seem very much like they were composed (if you can use that word when talking about drum tracks) specifically to fit the rest of the mix. It’s a well-executed performance by Mystery Drummer 42, and I applaud his efforts and his skill. Unless of course Adam just programmed that shit, in which case, fucking say that on your album page! Fuckheads!

Listen here.

- Information
- Released: 2012
- Label: Willowtip
- Website: Sophicide Facebook
- Band
- Sebastian Bracht: guitars
- Adam Laszlo: vocals

- Tracklist
- 01. The art of atrocity
- 02. Within temptation
- 03. Perdition of the sublime
- 04. Of lust and vengeance
- 05. Execration
- 06. Blood for honour
- 07. Freedom of mind
- 08. Folie á deux
- 09. Lafayette’s deception
- 10. Dawn of a new age
- 11. The essence of warfare