Saturday, June 5, 2021

Death is June - Severed Boy : "Tragic Encounters"

 




This duo summons  a very dense sound for just the two of them. The come of a dark and dirty corner of the sonic world where sludge and death metal collide. There are moments of hurtling speed placed between very deliberate walls of lumbering fuzz. They are not about making noise as spaces are left for you to catch your breath.  Unlike many sludge oriented bands thanks to their death metal intentions they do not drag things on into sprawling drones and keep their songs under the five minute mark. Vocally the coarsens applied  is more of a tortured howl of anger than a growl so file that under the sludge influence. 

"Pooling" finds them drifting from the assaults' for melodic intervals here and there . They blast back harder and angrier. There is a droney atmospheric piece with samples from "Frankenstein" sandwiched in here which for the purpose of this review I am ignoring. The mid tempo death metal drive of "Sparse Forest of Memories" benefits from a catchy riff in a way that does not break my "cool rifs alone does not a good song make" rule  . It also makes it clear that wile there are some sludge elements unlike Withered I reviewed earlier these guys are more committed to making death metal.

Their commitment to death metal is once again reaffirmed with "Mindless Future Breaker" which is on the more death doom side of the equation. It does not feel like they are trying to jump on any kind of band wagon with this but , serves as another dynamic to their sound, pouring on the speed mid way in. I will give this album a 9, though I am not sure how many more listens it is going to get from me, this is however and excellent job at doing what they do , so if you are into raw death metal with sludge tendencies then this album is a must. Another outstanding release on Caligari Record whois upholding their track record for some of the best underground metal today.  

  

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