Spiritual Deception has reached a new milestone.
Founded in 2016 in Italy by Mirko Frontini (guitar/vocals, ex-Humans Ablaze, ex-Mechanical God Creation), the band also counts on the talents of Manuel Del Giudice (drums, Wraithrest), Riccardo Maccarana (guitar, ex-Cerebral Extinction) and Billy Repalam (bass) for the release of Semitae Mentis, its debut album, on Amputated Vein Records.
The band kicks off the album with the soaring sound of The I Swells… (Decadence pt. I), an initially extremely calm introduction that eventually explodes into heaviness. The tortured patterns perfectly fit the devastated atmosphere continuing with Atavic Future (Decadence pt. II), where the band immediately unleashes complex overpowering riffs, while also integrating heady melodies and bestial howls. There’s also a piercing pig squeal before the final section, which leads into The Days of Sleep (Decadence pt. III) and its crushing rhythm that lets dissonant harmonics appear between two vocal eruptions, but also some more ominous touches. Beyond Perception and Matter follows with anguished backing vocals, but it soon becomes clear that the whole track is rooted in darkness, creating an oppressive atmosphere where the musicians pour out their violence, leading us to the heavy Dirac Sea. The band is supported by Luc Lemay‘s (Gorguts, Pallid Veil) guitar, which wonderfully fits their gloomy and sometimes frantic approach before they return to gentleness on The Night Opens, a soothing but still relatively mysterious interlude. On the Edge of the Abyss picks up speed again, playing with extreme heaviness and jerky riffs interspersed with impressive keyboards or samples, before the band welcomes Karl Sanders (Nile) on Thousand Lives Within, the next track. On the rhythmic side, the musicians remain anchored in their heavy basis, which they sometimes throw at full speed accompanied by mystical leads, while Individuality Dissolves adopts Old School elements that the band surrounds as always with its dark and strange veil of keyboards and terrifying choir. …to the Coldest Decline (Decadence pt. IV) brings the album to a close with more than nine minutes of a devastating, tormented mix that still has a few surprises in store for us in addition to the outpouring of violence.
Spiritual Deception not only offers more powerful compositions with Semitae Mentis, but also a token of its evolution: their sound is more precise, heavier, more dissonant, but also and above all much richer.
90/100
