Spectral Voice returns to haunt us.
Formed in 2012 in the USA, the band led by E. Wendler (drums/vocals, Black Curse, ex-Nekrofilth), P. Riedl (guitar, Blood Incantation, Leech, Chthonic Deity), M. Kolontyrsky (guitar, Blood Incantation, Black Curse, ex-Nekrofilth) and J. Barrett (bass, Blood Incantation) unveil their second album, Sparagmos, on Dark Descent Records in 2024.
The oppression begins with the first ominous notes of Be Cadaver, the first track, which appear with a hazy sound and draw us into the haunting dissonance before the arrival of the first cavernous screams. The rhythmics naturally ignite while remaining anchored in their darkness and raw Old School mix, allowing a few more visceral howls to emerge from the wave of grime before the soaring leads resurface to offer a touch of quietness in the company of the backing vocals. The sound fades but explodes again with Red Feasts Condensed Into One, which starts with a wall of blasts before becoming slower again, but just as stifling and mysterious, incorporating occult elements into its violence, like that haunting sound in the middle of the track. The band reveals all its strength in the crushingly apathetic moments, but always allows itself to accelerate before gradually fading away, leaving Sinew Censer to take up the torch with a sound contrasted between energetic double kick and floating keys, before finally returning to the hermetic and nebulous fog in which it envelops us. Rage is never far away, as it is on Death’s Knell Rings in Eternity, the final track, which lets us progress through this anguished cellar in the company of the musicians who weave their veil of darkness, not forgetting the terrifying howls that become more and more prominent in this landscape haunted by screaming leads, which finally lets us escape its web to find gentleness again.
Spectral Voice‘s first album stunned me on its release, and this one just had the same effect. Sparagmos is such a concentrate of darkness and oppression that it needs to be listened to more than once to grasp all its nuances, but I assure you that you won’t waste your time.
95/100