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Spawn Of Possession: Noctambulant

19/03/07 || The Duff

“Noctambulant” is the sophomore effort from these very talented Swedes, the follow-up to “Cabinet”, an album that caused quite a stir upon its release due to its displays of sheer awesome musicianship. I should imagine quite an interest has been generated over what this band could work up following such an intelligently crafted death metal opus. Well, not much has changed since their debut, except that Dennis Rondum has decided to give up his dual-role as vocalist/drummer, and focus solely on his position behind the kit (vocal duties being taken over by Jonas Renvaktar, their tour fill-in for the promoting of “Cabinet”), and that’s about it… except the band has just gotten slightly more technical…

How these guys managed to write stuff even more mind-bendingly complicated than the material on “Cabinet” is totally fucken beyond me, but this album has surpassed SoP’s debut in terms of complexity to such a point that I rate it as without a doubt the most technical death metal album I have ever heard. Necrophagist, as much as I admire them, are like lost little kids in comparison. Although Dennis Rondum is clearly a very talented drummer, and he really mixes it up on the kit throughout this album’s duration, I have to say that his performance appears rather lackluster, as it is entirely overshadowed by the skills of Jonas Karlsson and Jonas Bryssling. These guys are quite simply the reason for which “Noctambulant” is such a success. The guitars interweave, shred, break down (if only for a second or two), shriek, spin, fucken rape yer ears, turn you over and repeat, and pretty much send your brain cells into overdrive so as to comprehend the material presented here (this will almost certainly take repeated spins to fully grasp).

I read an interview where one of the band members stated that this album had more groove to it than the almighty “Cabinet”, which I have to say I don’t agree with in the slightest. The last thing this album does is fucken groove, everything is just so unbelievably jarring. I think the one riff where I actually hear a solid groove is in “Sour Flow”, about the 1:45 mark, and it lasts for about as long as I do beating it to the MILF Hunter (for the uninitiated, that ain’t very fucken long). “Cabinet” actually had some tasty, “shake-yer-hips” stuff thrown in amongst the maelstrom of hyper-fast powerchords, leads and arpeggiated, muted, goodness-knows-whatever-the-fuck-else madness that these fellas spew out in their well-mannered way of saying “Yeah, we’re fucking with your heads, why should we care?”. This has close to nil moments where you can actually take a step back and admire the view, as any riff with the slightest hint of groove barely ever lasts longer than two-three seconds (an exception could be from the more straightforward track, “Dead & Grotesque”, taken from their earlier demos), it all comes straight at you with about as much subtlety as a twelve inch cock drenched in gasoline, set ablaze and fired from a medieval catapult.

Of course, this can lead to pitfalls in the appreciation of this stuff. Some may see it as too technical, while others as too showy and as such devoid of any musical merit other than how precisely they can hit each note when their hands are clearly traveling at speeds well over one million miles an hour. Personally, what really pisses me off about bands like this is that no one else sounds anything quite like them (Necrophagist are guilty of this), which means that when they release an album of such a high a standard, it’s the fact that I’ll have to wait about another three years or so before I get more of the same.

The album begins on a slightly weak note with the instrumental “Inception” (reminding me of many a Morbid Angel keyboard-driven track put on the album, so as to provoke thoughts of quantum physics and parallel universes), but from then on its all uphill goodness until the last track where the band goes all out with speed and melts your face off with the absolutely rampant “Scorched”.

With “Cabinet”, I thought that this band had created a death metal masterpiece that was incredibly technical while somehow managing to separate itself from the pack. Well, the band has just kicked it up a notch and made their debut full-length, although still very good, appear almost regular in comparison. Although the recipe for “Noctambulant” is much the same, the formula has been refined, the rhythms rendered a lot more jarring, and the overall product streamlined and sexified to the point where I cannot accuse the band of treading water, but instead find no alternative other than to award this disc the highest of grades (with a penalty for the intro).

9 guitar skills I wish I had out of 10.

Information
Released: 2006
Label: Neurotic Records
Website: www.spawnofpossession.com
Band
Jonas Renvaktar: vocals
Jonas Karlsson: guitars
Jonas Bryssling: guitars
Niklas Dewerud: bass
Dennis Rondum: drums

Tracklist
01. Inception
02. Lash by Lash
03. Solemn They Await
04. Render My Prey
05. Eve of Contempt
06. Sour Flow
07. By a Thousand Deaths Fulfilled
08. Dead and Grotesque
09. In My Own Greed
10. Scorched

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