Entry 315 - Septic Flesh - Sumerian Daemons

 

Septic Flesh in pre breakup and reformation as Septicflesh was one of the more dynamic and interesting death metal bands to ever exist. Every album was different, some raw, others more polished... but they were always interesting. Sumerian Demons was the last album in that period and arguably the finest.

After revolution DNA I almost gave up on the band. The inclusion of so many clean vocals as well as the nearly pop song structures pretty much lost me. I had almost no interest in Sumerian Daemons when it first dropped, but out of chance I heard Unbeliever in a mix a friend gave me and that was more than enough to spark my interest.

Unbeliever is actually a poor reference for how this album truly sounds. While the opener is filled with blast beats and intense riffs, most of the album is slower and more brooding in pace. The real character of the album is shown on Virtues of the Beast. This song slows the tempo way down and introduces a female soprano as an accompanying vocalist to contrast the deep growls. The band also includes strong melodies and atmospherics from both keyboards and other samples that weave between the guitar riffs to create an immense sound on the album.

The album has great pacing. While the soul of the album is found with the slower songs, they are balanced out by some more intense ones. For every Magic Loves Infinity there is a Faust... simply incredible.

Sumerian Daemons is far and above my favorite Septic Flesh album. It takes all of the creativity of the early albums and combines it into a polished and complete package that has song so massive the only fitting description is monolithic. This stands as not only the finest album in their discography, it stands as one of the finest metal albums of all time.