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Sulphur Aeon: Swallowed by the ocean's tide
20/03/13 || Smalley
Hey, it seems another first 3rd of a year has yielded more awesome death metal with Ktulu coverart, “ocean” in the title, and involving a band I’d never heard of. First, it was April 2012 blessing me with In Mourning’s The weight of oceans (which also ended up dominating my year-end best-of verdict), and now January ’13 has given me Sulphur Aeon’s unbelievably epic “Swallowed by the ocean’s tide”. But this is just the band’s debut, so of course I’d never heard of ‘em (duh, right?), and I’m guessing that means most of you didn’t know ‘em either.
But hopefully, my review will change all that, and also help convince people to start up their own cosmic cult of worship for the band, assuming they stay this good on future releases. But, no matter what comes next for SA, at least they’ve created one Elder God-sized, soul-devouring, tsunami-slammin’ first splash with the incredible scopes of “tide”. First off, if the melo death of “The weight of oceans” was more about conveying the beauty and energy of say, a swift, chilly ocean current, then the crushing, doom-tinged death metal of “tide” is about conveying, well… the actual weight of oceans, I guess you should say. And I mean the weight of oceanS, PLURAL… bitch.
Not to imply Aeon are doom/death in the same way as say, an Asphyx or similar acts, as a lot of the basic tempos here are rather standard DM stuff (though they can get quite fast at times), but the basic production is still doomier than average, as a big part of what sets “tide” apart is its unusually thick, epic, crushing rhythm guitar. Combine that particular production with the relentlessly intense songwriting, and instead of a slow, gradual descent into steadily deeper pressure, you get one monstrous tidal wave rushing forward to swallow you and your entire fam away from your day at the beachy.
Speaking of writing, the songs here are unfailingly diverse, engaging, and dynamic, with a consistency that’s next to bullet-proof, as there was rarely even a single song section that stood out as inferior, much less a single weak song on the whole. Fucken lucky break there, huh? Besides that, I definitely enjoyed how they kept every track from sounding the same (something some of Aeon’s peer bands could stand to work on), but even more important than that is, the way SA has this non-stop intensity, as the music actually reflects the band’s vitality and excitement for once.
The main thing that makes me pessimistic about new death metal is, even with some of the more famous bands, a lot of ‘em just sound like they’re making DM to follow along with the other acts in their hometown. I’m sure most of ‘em are genuinely excited to be in a band, but feeling that sort of real life energy, and recording something that can convey it to metalheads on other continents, isn’t always one in the same. But that isn’t anywhere near true with “tide”; trust me, even amongst jaded metalheads, this record will make them wake back up and FEEL something again. And besides vitality, “tide” always excels at conveying this massive sense of scope through each and every section; everything here just feels and sounds relentlessly bigBigBIG, like there’s a literal Mariana Trench-depth worth of music contained here. They just never fucken let up, I tell ya.
A relatively, slightly low amount of memorable riffs barely keeps this from getting a 9 (maybe it’s jus’ me getting pickier), but when it’s playing, “Swallowed by the ocean’s tide” will have your full attention, and though it may be difficult to remember every single section later on, there will still be no forgetting the Ktulu-size overall impression this’ll leave stamped in your motherfucken forehead. To poorly paraphrase 80’s Metallica (who were paraphrasing H.P. himself), “Not dead which eternal lie, with Sulphur Aeon, death (metal) not die!” Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Ktulu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn, motherfuckers!
- Information
- Released: 2013
- Label: Imperium Productions
- Website: Sulphur Aeon Facebook
- Band
- M.: vocals
- T.: guitars, bass
- D.: drums
- Marcel Schiborr: synthesizer, guitars, solo on “Zombi”
- Tracklist
- 01. Cthulhu Rites
- 02. Incantation
- 03. Inexorable Spirits
- 04. The Devil’s Gorge
- 05. Where Black Ships Sail
- 06. Swallowed By The Ocean’s Tide
- 07. Monolithic
- 08. From The Stars To The Sea
- 09. Those Who Dwell In Stellar Void
- 10. Beneath. Below. Beyond. Above.
- 11. Zombi
