Sanctification - Black Reign (Album Review)

Written by Baazgor

Sanctification – Black Reign

Pulverized Records

Released – 05/12/09

The One Sentence Review: In terms of Modern Death Metal, this is more of a Bruce Lee and less of a Richard Simmons. Like a grown soccer mom after a divorce and a bottle of coconut rum: Fast, ugly and mean.

Tracklisting:

1 – Thirst for Blood

2 – Black Reign

3 – Raw

4 – Eternal

5 – Hear This

6 – Dead Forever

7 – Flesh, Bone and Skin

8 – Trucido Christianese

9 - Storm

I was a little nervous going into Sanctification’s newest album; Swedish death metal in 2009, recorded at world famous Abyss Studios, mixed by Peter Tagtgren and mastered by Dan Swano. This was a blind listen, and I fully expected some super-polished, overly produced wanna-be ‘death metal’ that contained all the trappings of what is unfortunately labeled as death metal these days. I was expecting annoying sugar-coated melodies, castrated production values, weak vocals, clicky drums and general harmlessness.

Man…I’m an asshole. This thing is fucking brutal.

‘Black Reign’ is a neckbreaker, total musical trench warfare. Chainsaw guitars violently hack away everything in their path while a formidable hail of percussion bullets whiz overhead. Kristoffer Hell’s rasped, shouted vocals integrate seamlessly into the effort and fit as a deservingly powerful final contribution to Sanctification (he later departed, and his since been replaced by Magnus Broberg of Dark Funeral). The entire effort is meaty, rotten, foul, punishing. Modern day death metal with its own set of ideals, blowing apart competitors new and old. ‘Black Reign’ deserves much more attention than what it’s been given.

The album starts off with ‘Thirst for Blood’ and immediately establishes the template for the remaining eight tracks on the album. Catchy, memorable riffing with a little bit of seismic crunch to them grind away in the lower octaves as the ridiculously fast drumming pushes the whole catastrophe into the red zone. Blast beats break and pause just long enough for the beast to shift into a rolling fury of rapid fire double-bass as the song’s reformation turns from a feeding frenzy to an exhibition of brain-bruising, headbang worthy awesomeness. There is a brief passage in this song where it temporarily slows down for a simple lead that is double-harmonized over top of crunching rhythm guitars before up-shifting back into the furious section that opens up the track. There are no gimmicks here. There is no ‘preparatory’ moment at the start, this monster is like a blood-hungry version of the Kool-Aid man, busting through your wall in the middle of the night to eat your fucking kids. I love it.

The best thing about ‘Black Reign’ is that it’s just flat out a solid, well constructed album. From track to track, it reaps. Fast, heavy and dense. Much like my description of the opener, ‘Thirst for Blood’, other tracks follow in appropriate fashion. The title track blares out an excellent single-note tremolo lead that runs all over the place and works hand in hand with the tempo changes, palm muted triplets accented the rhythmic implied instability of the drums as stacked vocal layers rage on. Songs such as ‘Raw’ and ‘Flesh, Skin and Bone’ start off on slightly slower notes but immediately join up with the rest of the album’s overall tempo. Additional vocals provided by Magnus Broberg and Peter Tagtgren serve as entirely subtle but crushingly powerful additions a few of the tracks.

The production here is really nothing to complain about. The guitars are concentrated and thick, perfect for their execution and composition. There are no major melodies, leads or solos here, and the riffs here aren’t exactly poppy or sweet sounding, so the fact that there is a lot of low end to the riffs is absolutely perfect for this album. Nothing is overpowering and the instruments and vocals are evenly placed, created a full, low end heavy sound. My only qualm is that I would have loved to hear more thump out of the bass drum, as they collide a little bit with the snare when things get crazy, and the toms are a little lifeless as well. The speed behind the drum kit here is pretty astonishing and it’s a little upsetting because the bass drums here are all over the place and could have been a real audio treat with a little power behind them.

No complaints here people. If you dig death metal, old or new, or just want something ridiculously heavy without any bullshit attached to it, Sanctification’s ‘Black Reign’ is something you need to check out. This is pretty potent stuff without any of the bullshit bell and whistle methodology raping modern death metal these days. Hopefully, the loss of the vocalist and drummer after the recording of this album won’t have that big of an impact on future works.

Final Score: 8.5/10

--Written by Baazgor (Andrew Krause) for Metaltome.com, August 2nd, 2009.

Written by :