Auditive greasiness lovers, Scepter of Eligos is here for you.
Created in 2011 in the United States, the band catches attention into the local scene. Despite a quick name changing in 2017, Chris Candelario (bass), Frank Candelario (drums, Crafteon, Vacant Throne) and Andrew Sares (guitar/vocals, Ritual Flame) are ready to offer us their first album, Inverted Illusions.
Halfway between Old School Death Metal and greasy Sludge, the band finds its sound picking into the best of the two styles. We can feel it since the wall of sound erected by Reabsorbed, the first song, that combines blast beats, purulent riffs and ghoulish howlings. The song is very heavy, but also very catchy and worrying thanks to these occult harmonics. The unholy and groovy sound continues on Biological Possession, a slower but as crushing song, that let the band place dark and dismal harmonics, the an oppressive acceleration, while Starless Charms offers an instrumental track created between a haunting dissonance and psychedelic accents. Inverted Illusions takes those massive tones back for a thick rhythmic. Once again, we feel unhealthy sonorities and slowness which take control before Procession of Spectres, the last song. The longest one by far, it allows the band to spread Doom influences, heady leads and even some effects before getting us out of this soft slumber in which the band makes us sink again before striking again.
Scepter of Eligos’ first album will please as much to their long-time fans as to the newcomers. Inverted Illusion’s sound is as greasy as rich, heavy and interesting, and above all as strong as catchy.
90/100