Sepulchral - Beneath the Shroud (2025)

There are a bunch of sepulcher/sepulchral bands with similar names that often get confusing for me; this one is Sepulchral from Spain, a death metal act with a very throwback sound that seeks to trace itself back to the proud lineage of the late 80s/early 90s and perhaps put a splash of fresh viscera across the formula. Beneath the Shroud is their sophomore album, a simple, focused and evil affair which eschews nuance and novelty almost entirely to create a largely-upbeat tour of the audience's nostalgia for gruesome vocals, hugely produced riffs, and creepy tales of horrors supernatural and fleshy. They remind me of another Spanish band, Undead, who also have this stripped-down approach to genre, but more for their aesthetic purpose than actually sounding the same in terms of production or songwriting.

There's certainly a little of the ancient Swedish propulsion here from bands like Nihilist, Entombed and Dismember, but also a bit of the more primitive Dutch stuff circa Asphyx. But Beneath the Shroud also has a punky vibe to how its simple chord structures sail along, perhaps more like a slowed death grind as if you were stretching out earlier Napalm Death riffs. It's very often predictable, clubbing along at a safe pace, and lacks atmosphere beyond just the old school vibes that the music creates on its own, but they do address this with some silky smooth leads (at the climax of "Conflagration of Sacred Bones"), or a few doomier riffs like the one that inaugurates "Torchless Crossroads". I personally love the heavy saturation on the guitars, it feels like you are wading through a pool of flesh, while the bass lines are caustic and audible, and the drums give a workmanlike momentum to the raw riffing progressions.

The vocals are a bit blunt and bloody, but certainly resonate well with the music even if they have a few monotonous patterns across the verses. This is about as un-pretentious as you're going to get within the field of death metal, there is nothing progressive or complex or labyrinthine ever, you're going to figure it all out the first journey through the dirt, and how you feel about that is going to inform your reaction to this record. I find it pretty authentic in its pursuit of purity, and liked the grim glazings of the lead guitars and the bands willingness to offer some slower material to contrast the shuffling mid-pace that they usually churn along with. That said, I also found it a little bit too familiar with so much of the death metal I've experienced these last 37-38 years. Riffs that just sort of manifest but never go anywhere interesting. Production and style are already managed well, Sepulchral just needs to flex its creative muscles to compose some darker, more atmospheric stuff, dig down to those deeper graves.

Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10]

https://sepulchraldeathmetal.bandcamp.com/